James Vowles

One was Williams and one was a team called British American Racing.

And both indicated that I needed to have more of an engineering background.

Not a problem.

So I finished that degree off, went and did a second master's level degree in engineering.

I had no money.

I was really quite a bit in debt at that point in time.

Yeah.

And designed a school race car, won some awards with the team.

And first I thought, this is it.

I'm in the money, no problem.

Anyway, the company went bankrupt two weeks later.

Not the design, but they went bankrupt.

But in the audience, what I hadn't realized is we presented to many, many people that were Formula One teams, and I had a job offer the next day.

And it was to British American Racing, which turned into Braun GP, which turned into Mercedes, that I joined.

But Williams was a part of my very early, I guess, communication points and meant a lot to me.

So what I put in the letter was, I gave them my background, who I was, where I was.

I was actually blunt on it.

I said, I'm not what you will have in the business today.

I'm confident of that.

I suspect you have highly skilled individuals, but I want me to be one of those.