Paddy Lowe on Williams return... and why he isn't missing Mercedes
Crash.net
It has been a few weeks since you swapped Mercedes for Williams - how have you found the experience?
Paddy Lowe
I'm enjoying it. Time has gone very fast which is always a sign. You get stuck into things and you're very busy. It's been that way throughout my career really. It's a great team of people here. We have a reasonable place but at the same time I can see lots of things that we can do better. Lots of opportunities on the car itself.
Crash.net
From a world championship team to Williams - what was the biggest motivation for you to move?
Paddy Lowe
For me, it's a different, a different paradigm to come back to a team as a shareholder. So that's a new situation - I've always been an employee whether at Williams before or other teams I've worked with, so it has a very different feeling to it. And that - to come back to be a more permanent part of a team in that sense, is one of my major motivations and that's what makes it even more exciting than ever.
Crash.net
Does it help that this was available with a team you know better than most
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It's nice to come back to a team that I respect and enjoyed working for in the past. It was a great period in my career and working back then with Frank [Williams] and Patrick [Head], and the drivers we had. But I'm not sentimental like that really. I didn't come back to Williams because it was coming back. It had nothing to do with it. And in fact, you know, the industry has changed so much over that time, and Williams itself has moved location, it's a completely different system to how it was before, so, it doesn't feel particularly like going back.For me, it's actually more about going forwards.
Crash.net
Do you still get the essence of the team though?
Paddy Lowe
Yes, those values are there. That's the first team I came to and the values set by Frank and Patrick have been a good reference for me over the years so it's good to come back and build on those further.
Crash.net
What forms your Williams wish-list?
Paddy Lowe
We need to go and win some races! It's not complicated.
Crash.net
And championships?
Paddy Lowe
And championships. That is a big ambition, but that's what we exist to do, and that involves building a very successful business as well,. he business aspect to that rather than simply a technical and racing aspect, and that's what I really - I enjoy the challenge of putting that together.
Crash.net
What will it take for a team like Williams to win again?
Paddy Lowe
There are no silver bullets. It's a lot of stuff in all sorts of directions. We come from a solid base, but there's work to do in both on the car and within the organisation. Which everybody knows about, they're up for it, it's not about me as a single crusader, there are many people in the team and they all want to go out there and move forwards and come back to winning ways.
Crash.net
You have two contrasting drivers in Lance Stroll and Felipe Massa - is this a benefit to the team?
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You keep having to remind yourself how you were and what you were doing when you were 18... I didn't know anything! So it's impressive what Lance is doing at the moment at this young age. And all the pressures that come upon you in this sport, the pinnacle of motor sport. It's not simply about what you've got to do in the car, but what you do out of the car as well. I think he's handling it very well. It's very, very tough for him to have 3 DNFs in the first 3 races. We were all very happy, not least himself I'm sure, to see him finish a race in Sochi - slightly hairy moment on lap one and if not for that actually, he could well have been in the points. So the next target for us to is to score some points. he will start to settle down and get into a rhythm of what it takes to get through a season. F1 seasons are very, very long, and that's another thing that he'll need to learn, how to pace yourself through 20 races. There's no other motorsport formula requiring that level of endurance but he's doing well with it so far.
Crash.net
Do you relish the chance to work with young drivers starting out as a chance to impart your experience for their benefit?
Paddy LoweI enjoy working with all drivers in whatever shape or form they turn up, That has its special interest because the great thing with new drivers is that they actually don't have so many preconceptions and they're willing to understand and adapt and listen and learn. And that's not always so easy with more established drivers. But you know then, experienced drivers like Felipe they bring different things. You have the confidence and the respect of the huge experience they have which we as engineers can never really share, so getting insight into that and working with that is also always very interesting.
Crash.net
What about F1's new era regulations - something to get your teeth into?
Paddy Lowe
I've found the previous one exciting as well actually. We're always inclined in this sport to criticize the state of the show. It's always been that way as far as I'm concerned and yet actually, I would say the last several years have been the most intense, the most exciting, most spectacular that I can remember. The trouble is, you only remember, tend to remember the interesting races. There were a lot of very dull races in the past.
Crash.net
Rose-tinted spectacles?
Paddy Lowe
That is less the case these days. I think more this year, you've got the special excitement of a strong competition at the front between Ferrari and Mercedes. Like any sport it all gets a lot more interesting when there's a close and intense competition.
Crash.net
Do you miss Mercedes at all, particularly for the renewed Ferrari fight?
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No I don't miss that at all. It's remarkable how quickly you jump into the world that's around you and you adapt and understand what you've got to do from that contest. I don't miss it for 5 seconds...
[long pause]The only thing I do miss is - and I remembered the other day - I decided I'm an addict of purples. When you see the purples pop up on the screen, it actually kind of encapsulates what, what we're here for. That is it. When you send a car out there that you've helped to develop with a driver that can wring its neck and the purples start popping up, that is a Formula 1 engineer's ultimate raison d'etre and that's where the pleasure comes.
