Fry says greater team motivation to improve prompted his move from Alpine for Williams

New Williams chief technical officer Pat Fry says a lack of drive to move Alpine any further than fourth place led to his decision to leave and join forces with James Vowles.Vowles took over as Williams team principal ahead of the 2023 season and needed to find a chief technical officer and technical director as part of a rebuilding of the team at Grove. With Fry at Alpine at the time, the experienced engineer says he was enjoying the progress being made at his former team but felt the momentum to push on further had slowed and he didn’t see the commitment to keep working its way to the front.“I look back at the first three years I was there, and we improved Enstone dramatically,” Fry said. “Year on year, we built a better car — if you put the three cars next to each other, each one was a massive step. Credit for everyone there; the various teams were collaborating a huge amount better. I think everyone there should be proud of what we achieved in those three years.“I guess I’d gone back there with that, ‘Go back to the place you started your career and try and rebuild it’ and I think we did really well. From a distant fifth, were a solid fourth.“But I didn’t feel there was the enthusiasm or the drive to move forward beyond fourth. And I decided that from the start of March that really I want to be pushing things forward. I don’t just want to sit there and not be able to do things. So for me, that was time to stop and move on, really.“So it’s one of those things — I think as a company they almost weren’t set up to push hard enough. You can say you want to be first, but the difference between saying it and achieving it is monumental, isn’t it?”Fry says it’s the investment and backing from Williams owners Dorilton Capital that made the move so attractive when he compared the two options he had, having started work at his new team in November.“James had been talking to me for a little while, and it wasn’t until another couple of months after that, that I decided to come here,” he said. “But I guess the thing that excites me about this opportunity is the board is fully on board with what it’s going to take to move this place forward. They’re willing to invest what it takes and support us in building a team.“And again, it’s a nice thing isn’t it, to rebuild an old British icon. It’s a bit like my romantic view of going back to Benetton to rebuild them, really. So it’s another exciting prospect. But as I say, James is pushing hard to try and improve this place. The board is fully behind him, moving the place forward, and that’s the thing that excites me. We’re not going to be limited in what we can achieve. We’re just going to do the best we can in the time and move things forward.”