Jost Capito is leaving his role as Williams team principal and CEO after just two years in the job.
The heritage team issued a short statement on Tuesday confirming Capito would be relieved of his duties before the start of the 2023 season.
Technical director François-Xavier Demaison, who was hired in March 2021, will also leave the team in a management clean-out ahead of the new season.
“We would like to thank Jost for his hard work and dedication as we embarked on a major transformation process to begin the journey of reviving Williams Racing,” said Matthew Savage, the chairman of ownership consortium Dorilton Capital.
“We’re grateful that Jost postponed his planned retirement to take on this challenge and now he will pass the reins on for the next part of this staged process.
“We would also like to thank FX for his contribution and wish him all the best for his future as he moves on.”
Capito said it had been “a huge privilege to lead Williams Racing for the last two seasons and to lay the foundations for the turnaround of this great team”.
The team said it would announce Capito and Demaison’s replacements “in due course”.
Williams’s announcement creates significant leadership vacancies at two teams, with Ferrari also on the lookout for a team principal after Mattia Binotto’s resignation late last month. Binotto was also the de facto technical director, having not had his role replaced when he was promoted to the principalship.
Williams is one of Formula 1’s most historically successful teams. Its nine constructors championships make it second to only Ferrari for teams titles, and its 114 race wins and seven drivers championships put it fourth on those respective tables behind Ferrari, McLaren and Mercedes.
But it hasn’t won either title in 25 years and has been in decline ever since, culminating in the founding Williams family selling the financially compromised Grove outfit to Dorilton Capital in 2020.
Capito joined Williams under new ownership in late 2020 as the highly rated former head of Volkswagen’s dominant World Rally Championship entry during the mid-2010s.
The VW luminary spent approximately four months in the CEO role before restructuring the team and making himself team principal. He subsequently inducted Demaison as technical chief and Sven Smeets as sporting director, having enjoyed successful partnerships with both in the WRC.
Dorilton had hoped their experience, together with financial security, could generate some momentum under the new regulations this year, but the team has slid backwards from eighth to last this year, with both Haas and Alfa Romeo moving well ahead of it in pure performance terms.
But Capito and Demaison’s sudden departures nonetheless have come as a surprise. Williams’s announcement gave little away as to whether these were resignations, mutually agreed separations or outright sackings, but the lack of comment from Demaison could be interpreted as a sign that the Frenchman wasn’t anticipating leaving the team.
Capito also gave little indication during the final rounds of the season that the team would be changing course despite the announcement appearing to imply the 64-year-old was retiring.
Restoring Williams to the midfield, never mind to its past glories, was always going to be a long-term project. Not only had it spent years in a financially precarious position, limiting crucial infrastructure investment, but it was also known to be wracked by a culture resistant to modernisation, something Capito attempted to break with his 2021 restructure.
Demaison’s appointment to the technical directorship despite having no grand prix experience was an example of Capito’s attempts to broaden the Williams gene pool.
Notwithstanding the magnitude of the task, the ownership is said to have been very disappointed this year’s car was so far off the pace. On average it was more than 2.2 seconds off pole and more than 0.3 seconds slower than the next-best car throughout the year.
That Capito and Demaison are now leaving Grove after barely 24 months at the helm suggests either that the team ownership has rapidly lost faith in their ability to steer Williams to success — despite 2022 being the first season in which they’ve been able to influence the car — or that they have found work elsewhere.
Given his Volkswagen links, Capito in particular would be an attractive team principal candidate for Audi as it completes its purchase of Sauber ahead of a full works conversion for the 2026 season.
Frederic Vasseur is currently running the Swiss factory but is tipped as Binotto’s replacement at Ferrari. The Frenchman for weeks has been rumoured to be Ferrari’s preferred candidate, with a smooth transition prevented only by Binotto’s decision to force the Scuderia’s hand with his resignation.
Swiss newspaper Blick has reported rumours that Vasseur has already bought a house in Maranello and that an announcement could be made as soon as next week.
“If you get an offer from Ferrari, you have to go,” former team owner Peter Sauber told Blick.
Demaison’s future is less clear, with Sauber currently employing Jan Monchaux as its technical director. The French-German engineer took up the role partway through 2019 and designed a car good enough for sixth in the standings and 51 points this season, up from ninth with 13 points in 2021.
The relative success of Monchaux’s technical program is part of the reason Williams has looked so dire this year.
Candidates for the Williams leadership roles are more difficult to forecast, particularly given the uncertainty around the departure of the incumbents.
The team will field Alex Albon alongside rookie Logan Sargeant in 2023.
