James Vowles has “helicopters on standby” at British GP as second child due any day

James Vowles has revealed that he has “helicopters on standby” during the British Grand Prix weekend as his wife, Rachel, is expecting their second child any day.

The Williams team chief shared with The Telegraph, “As you can imagine with me, I have contingencies. I’ve got plans upon plans upon plans… so we are sorted, including helicopters on standby and all sorts!”

The couple already have a 19-month-old daughter named Elodie.

The 46-year-old took the opportunity to speak about his wife and her work as a surgeon.

“I was like, ‘I’ve got to warn you, my work is my life, and I work really long hours,'” he explained, reflecting on their first date. “And she was like, ‘No, I work really long hours.’ And I was like ‘No, no, no. I work really long hours.’ We actually went through it. And to be fair, Formula 1 still trumps it, but only just.

“My wife is unbelievable. She’s one of the best surgeons in the UK. A double-first from Oxford who then worked in A&E in Whitechapel, then trained in plastics and breast cancer. So quite a unique individual in that she can diagnose breast cancer and then do the mastectomy and a rebuild afterwards.

“She’s now doing a PhD on the use of mesh in the rebuild process post-mastectomy. Honestly, it’s life-changing stuff. I just work in F1. She’s the clever one.”

James Vowles, Williams

Photo by: Peter Fox / Getty Images

This comes during a difficult time at the Grove outfit. Despite a strong start to the 2025 season, the team ran into reliability issues. Alex Albon called for an internal review following his Q2 exit in Silverstone.

“Yes, I think internally we need to review what went on there, because we put on a set of tyres when Franco [Colapinto] crashed, and then we went out on the track when it was quite clear it was going to be a red flag, so, basically we immediately wasted a set in qualifying,” the Thai-British driver explained to Motorsport.com and other media.

“We went into Q2 run one on a used set of tyres. Until this point, we were looking good, feeling good, and I actually did a pretty good lap in Q2 run one, considering the used tyres. Then we go into Q2 run two and try to go out at the very front of the pack, where Max is – and Max’s out lap is about 15–20 seconds slower than ours – so we did Q2 run two on our final new set, basically not even close to being ready. 

“Q2 was obviously compromised, let’s say that. We need to review what we did. We generally do go on the early side in quali – we like to – but today was too much. We need to understand why we like to go so early all the time.”