James Vowles and Andy Cowell have given an insight into how much they learned from Toto Wolff about being a team principal, with the pair having both worked extensively alongside the Austrian at Mercedes before taking on their respective roles at Williams and Aston Martin.
Prior to becoming the new team boss at Williams in 2023, Vowles acted as Motorsport Strategy Director at the Silver Arrows and in the years before held key engineering and strategy roles at Mercedes, Brawn GP, Honda and BAR.
Pushed during the Monaco Grand Prix weekend on how much of Wolff’s leadership approach informed his own style, Vowles – seated alongside Wolff in the press conference – responded: “Toto just joked, ‘all of it’, but it’s not a joke. It really is that.
“I had the pleasure of being… Toto, probably 10 years ago, 12 years ago or so, he pulled me under his wing and just slowly allowed me to get more and more responsibility within the organisation in a way that exposed me to the difficulties that he’s going through daily, but in a safe and positive way.
Vowles has praised Wolff for his «expertise and guidance»
“So it went similar to drivers – drivers into more technical bits of the business. And there’s no doubt about it, I would have sunk without his expertise and guidance by my side, and it’s what he does really well, but he’s bashful and doesn’t talk about it too much.
“But it was a pleasure in that circumstance. There was a time that’s not very well known, but we spent a week together in his place in Austria and that was one of the best weeks of my life. So, there are some incredible things that you can do whilst you’re under the guidance of Toto.”
Cowell echoed those comments as he looked back on his own time at Mercedes, having acted as Engineering Director for the Mercedes-Benz High Performance Engines division from 2008 to 2013 before taking on the position of Managing Director of the renamed Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains.
The Briton left the company in 2020 and made a return to the grid as CEO of Aston Martin in late 2024, while he also became Team Principal ahead of the 2025 campaign.
“I think [in] my time at Mercedes, I learned from Toto,” Cowell explained. “I learned from Niki Lauda. I learned from Ola Källenius, and there are all these characters that you come across when you’re in the Mercedes family. And yeah, you try and remember the good bits and push and move forwards.”
Cowell spent several years working alongside Wolff at Mercedes
Wolff also took a moment to look back on the qualities he saw in Cowell and Vowles whilst working with them at Mercedes, with the team boss suggesting that both showed signs of being able to lead a team in the future.
“With Andy, he was one of the strongest managers that I’ve seen ever in my life with all the other businesses,” Wolff reflected. “He had also the human side and the people management, on the other side, the technical skill.
“We used to laugh when we had an engine issue, that Andy was having his fingers on the pistons and in the cylinder head on the Saturday, after Qualifying. And I always said, ‘Are your nails dirty?’ Because that meant he was in control of what was happening on the engine side. So, yeah, definitely.
“And James, you know, James could have been a team principal in Mercedes if it wasn’t [for] me. I was in his way. So, he chose another route, and does that very well as you can see.”
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