when the Williams Formula 1 team announced James Val as his newest team principal in 2023 many people within the paddock were surprised val was the chief strategist at Mercedes second in command of billionaire team principal Total Wolf Val contributed eight consecutive constructor titles and seven drivers titles williams had a rich history as Formula 1's third oldest team but why would James Val leap the sport's most successful team to join his last place team mercedes had over a thousand employees a waiting list of sponsors and Formula 1's most advanced wind tunnel williams had a few hundred employees a slow car and a near empty bank account now transitioning from chief strategist to team principal was a promotion but that doesn't mean it wasn't a gamble formula 1 is a cut-throat sport it doesn't matter if you are a driver team principal or mechanic if you don't perform you get replaced williams had already gone through three team principles in the previous decade with two of them lasting less than 24 months it's not hyperbole to say that almost everyone thought it was an impossible job with none of the necessary resources to succeed that didn't matter to James Val though he moved his desk 40 minutes south from the Mercedes factory in Brackley to the Williams headquarters in Grove and despite only being 2 years into the turnaround Williams is already showing promising signs williams has scored more points over the last eight races at 54 than they did over the previous 3 years combined at 53 once seen as a perpetual back marker Williams has solidified itself as a midfield contender they are currently fifth in the standings behind McLaren Mercedes Red Bull and Ferrari but ahead of everyone else while it's still in its early stages the turnaround at Williams is reminiscent of what has happened at McLaren rather than applying patchwork solutions to appease shareholders Val has spent the last 24 months tearing everything down he has hired dozens of new employees both in technical and non-technical departments the team's entire technology stack has been rebuilt from the ground up and Williams new ownership group Dorin Capital is poised to achieve a massive financial return now the Williams Formula 1 team has undergone several transitional periods over the last few decades first came the glory days founded in 1977 by Sir Frank Williams and Patrick Hed williams became one of Formula 1's most successful teams over four decades they won nine constructor's championships and seven drivers titles with legends such as Nigel Manel Alan Pros and Damon Hill piloting their F1 cars this era propelled Williams into the minds and hearts of Formula 1 fans worldwide ferrari and McLaren were the only other teams to have more wins entering the 2000s but Williams was able to accomplish his feat as an independent team meaning they didn't have any luxury cars or cheap energy drinks to sell to make up for their losses in the 2000s Williams remained competitive but slightly off the championship pace a partnership with BMW yielded race wins in the early 2000s but no titles and after BMW's departure in 2005 Williams struggled to stay at the front by the early 2010s Williams had firmly established itself as a midfield team a switch to the Mercedes power unit in 2014 led to a couple of third place finishes in 2014 and 2015 but this decade marked the start of a steep decline that Williams is still recovering from in 2018 Williams missed the first 2 and 1/2 days of preseason testing because the team's FW42 car was not ready in time they only scored seven points all season long and plummeted to 10 or last place in the standings yet things somehow got worse williams only scored a single point in 2019 and zero points during the entire 2020 season there were a few bright spots during the early 2020s like when George Russell earned a podium finish at the 2021 Belgian Grand Prix however Russell only earned that podium because the race was red flagged due to heavy rain after just a handful of laps and there haven't been many bright spots since budget constraints forced Williams to rely on paid drivers for additional sponsorship revenue like Lance Stroll and Nicholas Latifi the team was operating on such a tight budget that inseason car development was non-existent williams was often lapped by other cars within 20 laps of the race starting this is when James Bows entered the picture if you were to ask him I imagine he wasn't even sure what he was getting himself into at the time american-based private equity firm Doratin Capital had recently purchased the team for $200 million but Williams was losing tens of millions of dollars each year and the morale at the team was disastrous to highlight just how dire the situation was when James V arrived at the factory he discovered that the team had no internal technology to track the development and production of car parts every single one of the 14,000 parts on the team's Formula 1 car was being tracked in a single Excel spreadsheet a far cry from the sophisticated product lifestyle management system that Mercedes had built in-house custom to monitor parts from design to build to racing this gap at Williams was causing inefficiencies and miscommunications wasting precious time and more importantly resources not to mention it was a big reason why the Williams car misprees in testing in 2018 because it wasn't done in time now fortunately for Williams James Val was uniquely equipped to handle the challenge after graduating from university with degrees in math and computer science James Val sent a letter to every single Formula 1 team asking for a job only two teams replied but they didn't give him the answer that he was looking for the truth was Formula 1 teams didn't need any more mathematicians they needed more engineers so James Valves went back to school in 2001 Val eventually got his start as a data acquisition engineer with British American Racing staying with the team through its transitions to Honda racing Brawn GP and of course Mercedes he worked with world-class drivers like Jacqu Villinoade Jensen Button Michael Schumacher Lewis Hamilton and Nico Roser eventually becoming known around the paddic as a potential successor to Total Wolf but with Total Wolf not ready to leave Formula 1 anytime soon James Valves made the jump to Williams james Valves was such a unique hire for Williams because he knew what a championship team looked like from his time at Mercedes from the mindset that drivers needed to win races to how sponsors should be treated in the paddic club to the way engineers should communicate with their drivers over the radio during the race val received a crash course in excellence under Toto Wolf within weeks of taking the job at Williams James Val set expectations he was clear from the very beginning that this wouldn't be a one or two-year turnaround he needed to rebuild the entire organization from the ground up if Doris Capital was lucky Williams could potentially compete for podiums in 2026 a long three years and hundreds of millions of dollars in budget away the good news for Val was that Williams finally had the financial backing it needed to make substantive changes val started this journey by prioritizing people williams had been without a chief technical officer or CTO for 4 years at this point so his first major hire was Pat Fry the highly respected engineer had over 30 years of experience in Formula 1 but that was just the tip of the iceberg over the following two years Val embarked on an aggressive recruitment campaign bringing 26 new hires in key departments from rival teams across the paddic by August 2024 Val said he had hired close to 250 people since taking over Williams the previous year this included personnel across all departments design manufacturing race engineering and operations and it meant that Williams was now moving closer to the 900 or a,000 headcount seen at rivals like Mercedes and Red Bull while hiring people is one pillar of James Val's rebuild the other is giving them the tools to succeed this is an ongoing battle as Val says that Mercedes had approximately $300 million worth of equipment that Williams doesn't currently possess to make matters more difficult Mercedes and other top teams like Red Bull and Ferrari were able to lock in these facility advantages before the cost cap was implemented in 2021 williams eventually convinced Formula 1 to add a cost cap exemption for special projects such as wind tunnels and race day simulators but those are multi-year projects so Valves began by focusing on short-term gains like increasing wind tunnel efficiency utilizing 3D printing for rapid prototyping and automated machinery for precision this seems to be one of Val's superpower while many Formula 1 teams struggle to allocate resources between upgrades for this year's car and prototypes for next year's car James Bal has almost exclusively focused on improving systems now so that they can take advantage of them later in fact Val has publicly said that he would be okay if Williams didn't score a single point during the 2023 24th and 25 seasons james Val's leadership style is most accurately described as people first he preaches a no blame collaborative environment every time you hear him talk he's rarely ever talking about himself it's always what everyone else is doing to help the team win more importantly James Val's transparency and accountability have enabled the team's ownership group and fans to buy into his vision by openly discussing Williams shortcomings with the media rather than keeping them a secret James Val sets realistic expectations while making himself and the team accountable for addressing the issues this approach is a big reason why Williams now has one of the sport's strongest driver lineups the rebirth of Alex Albon at Williams after leaving Red Bull Racing combined with Val's vision was a massive factor in the team landing Carlos SCS this past offseason val says that these two drivers are perfect for Williams because they are fast but also collaborative willing to do whatever it takes to help the team win pairing Carlos SCS with Alex Albon has already paid dividends on the track given their experience they can optimize the current car setup while also providing the team with valuable feedback on next year's car if the current standings were to hold Williams fifth place finish would earn the team $100 million in prize money while prize money is helpful it's really only part of the equation instead of being seen as a perennial backarker or nostalgic old team Williams is rebranding itself as a resurgent contender this underdog approach has helped the team convince sponsors to get in on the ground floor examples include a title sponsorship deal with Atlasia as well as deals with Gulf Oil Duracell Kraken Santandere Michelob Ultra and Stevens despite form of the 1's cost cap sitting at $140 million this year Williams has historically operated on a budget far smaller but now that they have the financial backing of Doratin and a handful of lucrative sponsorship deals they plan to use the entire budget going forward effectively leveling the playing field with their competitors an increased budget helps with everything from car development to headcount the cost gap also increases the enterprise value of the team because rather than having teams spend hundreds of millions of dollars to lose tens of millions of dollars each year most Formula 1 teams are now profitable now Williams isn't there yet but that's only because they've been investing a ton of money in the team's infrastructure once that investment is completed the financials begin to resemble the NFL salary cap system controlled costs with guaranteed profits from TV revenue and sponsorship deals williams has made significant progress so far but what's truly important is next year while Formula 1 teams commit a large percentage of their resources to the ongoing development of this year's car James Val has already said that Williams won't be making any more upgrades to their car this year instead they are fully focused on the 2026 car formula 1's new regulations next year provide an opportunity for Williams to make a monumental leap the team has spent the last couple of years reviewing all 260 pages of technical regulations seeking any potential advantages they can find they have come up with thousands of cardons eliminating them one by one based on computer simulated aerrow performance the best options are then built at 60% scale for wind tunnel testing now we are not even halfway through the 2025 season but 2026 will be here before we know it in less than nine months teams will show up in Barcelona for preseason testing cadillac will be the talk of the town as Formula 1's newest team but for the first time in a long time the top teams will be watching closely when Williams opens its garages if Williams can pull this off it won't just be a comeback it'll be one of the best turnarounds Formula 1 has ever seen james Val didn't leave Mercedes to run a team stuck in the midfield he came to rebuild one of the sport's most iconic teams from the ground up the stopwatch will tell the entire story but one thing is already obvious williams isn't clinging to its past anymore they're focused on an ambitious future