James Vowles eyes podium for Williams in 2025: “A lucky one could come, but we must earn it”. Williams Team Principal James Vowles believes a lucky podium is possible in 2025.

FP1 of the Canadian Grand Prix ended with a positive result for Williams, placing second and third with Ales Albon and Carlos  Sainz respectively, behind Max Verstappen. Although it was just a single free practice session, the outcome confirmed the team’s progress from last season to this one, with the British outfit currently holding fifth place in the Constructors’ Championship.

Podium in 2025?
The question almost comes naturally: can Williams make it to the podium this season and claim a top-three finish for the first time since the 2021 Belgian GP? On this point, Team Principal James Vowles appeared cautiously optimistic. The former Mercedes chief strategist believes such a result is possible, though he remains realistic: “I think a lucky podium could happen, but that’s not what I want,” he told theScore. “I want to earn the podium because we deserve it based on performance and pace. I think earning it purely on merit is very unlikely this year, and a lucky podium has a small probability. It’s not zero, as it perhaps once was, and it will mean a lot to me when we achieve it. I’m looking forward to the day when you ask me when the first win will come, and when the first championship? Those are the steps I eagerly await.”

The team’s growth
Last season, at least five teams managed to score a podium. On the eve of the Canadian GP, four teams had done so this year, with Albon coming close to the top three on three occasions, finishing fifth: “When I arrived in 2023, I found someone a bit battered and bruised, to be honest,” James Vowles continued. “He’s grown a lot over the course of the year and into 2024, but he’s made a huge, huge step from 2024 to 2025. What you see today is someone who doesn’t make mistakes on race weekends, who focuses on what he wants to achieve, gives great feedback, and knows how to bring the engineers along the journey.”

Another element that makes Vowles proud is the synergy between the team’s two drivers: “Alex approaches things like, ‘This is how I’m driving.’ Carlos comes at it from a data perspective: ‘Take a look at this, this is what’s happening.’ The combination of those two gives us tremendous strength in finding what we’re looking for. I’m confident, very confident—one of the reasons this car has made progress is because we have two drivers working together.”