James Vowles shares the moment he thought F1 ‘was over’ due to financial concerns

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James Vowles has worked hard to get into his current position as team boss of Williams, following a long spell with Mercedes.

He has helped to transform the team from backmarkers to midfielders within the space of a year, including putting new infrastructure in at the team’s base in Grove.

They’re now a much tidier outfit because of it, and the knowledge that Vowles gained from his time at the Silver Arrows will have helped him to implement what he knows that the team needed to enjoy success.

With seven races to go in 2024, they still have a chance of finishing as high as sixth in the constructors’ standings, which would be the best result for Williams since 2017.

James Vowles thought Formula 1 ‘was over’ during Covid

The Covid-19 pandemic was a tricky spell for businesses all over the globe, with nothing really going on as the world was on effective pause.

Formula 1 teams struggled especially, and left some on the brink of collapse – but since then, they’ve enjoyed a meteoric rise and are now much better from a business standpoint.

Speaking to WSJ News, Vowles discussed the period during Covid where he felt that the sport was ‘over’ for good, before things changed for the better.

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“A little anecdote story because it’s funny. In my last place, we had the UK tax organisation come and see us.

“We’d been operating for 18 years and they came to see us because they said ‘you haven’t made profit in 18 years.’ We went ‘Yep, welcome to Formula 1.’ And they couldn’t believe it. Basically, that was Formula 1 businesses.

“If you think about it, you can’t run an organisation that way. That’s why at the end of 2008 so many teams pulled out. That’s why even when it got to Covid, we thought Formula 1 was over. It wasn’t. That was the resurgence.”

How the Formula 1 landscape has changed

It’s no secret that the value of Formula 1 teams has skyrocketed over the past few years, and the sport has enjoyed a positive injection of investment.

There are a few factors for it, such as the work that owners Liberty Media have put into the sport, but one overarching thing has helped more than anything.

The arrival of Netflix’s Drive to Survive series helped to give the sport a platform to expand and grow its audience.

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As popularity has boomed, so has the value of everything associated with the series, making teams a viable business to run now.

In fact, they’re even profitable now, which would’ve been crazy to think about if you were discussing the matter just a decade ago.

Formula 1 is thankfully, in a much better place now than it was pre-Covid.