Vowles is Williams’ F1 team principal for F1 2023, taking over from Jost Capito, who left the team before Christma☂s.

Vowles has been Mercedes’ chief strategist for over a decade, playing an integral role in the team’s and 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:Lewis Hamilton’s incredible title success.

The move prompted some suggestions that Vowles was using Williams to build ♓up his experience, like with George Russell, before returning to Mercedes to potentially replace Toto Wolff when he no longer wants to run the team.

Wol🍸ff has played thi✃s suggestion down, however, Chandhok seems to think otherwise.

“I think it caught m💟ost of the pad♎dock by surprise,” he said.

“I✃ do wonder whether there’s some Mercedes element to this deal, because it’s very rare that you find someone certainly in a senior position of a team move across with zero gardening leave, and James has done that, so clearly a very amicable thing.

“I mean, to the point of which I think Me🍎rcedes, basically, were orchestrating the press announcement in some ways, certainly liaising with the media.”

With Williams finishing b꧟ottom of the F1 constructors’ s📖tandings in four of the last five seasons, Chandhok believes Vowles will find it tricky to turn the team around quickly. 

“I think it’s a good move,” Chandhok added. “Actually, I like the𒊎 fact that they’ve gone for a bold move in terms of getting someone who hasn’t done the role before, but someone with an engineering background, who’s recently worked with a top team.

“He’s going to bring technical knowledge, he’s going to bring an understanding of a team 🤪structure that perhaps Williams didn’t have in recent times. And he’s a smart guy, we all know James in the paddock, he’s got a strong work ethic.

“But F1 teams are like big tankers, you can’t just𓂃 pivot quickly, it’s going to tak⭕e a long time and a lot of work. I think he’s got his work cut out for him.

“I ൲think the biggest challenge is how quickly can he poach other top people from other teams. I think because yo🌳u can have all the technology in the world but it is still a human sport. And you need that brainpower. So how quickly can he poach that brainpower? That will be key to his success.”