Mercedes’ F1 strategy chief Vowles eyes next racing challenge

But for Mercedes chief strategist James Vowles, his focus right now is on getting himself back in action as soon as possible. Not from the pitwall, though, but actually out on track racing.

After an encouraging maiden campaign in the Asian Le Mans Series earlier this year, he is eager to return again for the 2023 season, as well as hopefully get an outing in the Gulf 12 Hours this month.

Much still depends on putting the financial package together but, after having his eyes opened by competing in GT3 machinery, he is doing all he can to get things across the line.

While Vowles is well-known to F1 fans as the man making the calls on the Mercedes pitwall for Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, his own racing exploits have been quite under the radar.

That’s partly because he didn’t want to make a big song and dance about it, in case he made an embarrassment of himself.

But after testing various cars, competing in club racing and the British Saloon Car Championship, in 2022 he stepped up to the Asian Le Mans Series, racing a McLaren GT3 car for Andrew Kirkaldy’s Garage 59 outfit.

He showed enough promise – and a pretty simple rating from Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff – to want to go back.

“I kept it quiet because in truth I didn’t know if I would be good enough,” he said this week, taking a break from testing a Lamborghini GT3 car with Iron Lynx at Paul Ricard.

“The Asian Le Mans series is literally the best of pretty much every manufacturer that turns up. Then there’s me!

“So what I didn’t want to do is do a tremendous amount of promotion for it, because you could just embarrass yourself. Now, as it turns out, and to quote Toto: I wasn’t shit…”

Vowles has no illusions of grandeur about his speed, and as a bronze driver readily admits to being an acceptable margin off the gold and platinum drivers that make up your typical sportscar squad.

However, that has not stopped him from revelling in the challenge of trying to improve his own performance – as well as having his eyes opened about how different perspectives are from a cockpit compared to the pitwall.

In fact, it’s the psychological aspect of driving that he has found especially fascinating

“You worry, and you wonder, if you’ve lost your ability to drive a racing car,” he says. “And I know, as odd as that sounds, I don’t have this ever at work.

“If you ask me how to do my job within the world of Mercedes, I’ve done it for 20 years,…