THE LONG INTERVIEW
THIS IS JOST CAPITO 68 GP RACING JANUARY 2022
young people in their twenties and thirties are trooping through reception, products of the talent pipeline that is the UK’s motorsport valley. Most will have been born after Williams won its first drivers’ and constructors’ world championships in 1980. Some might yet have a been a twinkle in their parents’ eyes when the team scored its last such success in 1997.
Jost Capito, 63 years young, the team’s CEO and team principal, is sitting upstairs in a large open plan office, sharing a joke with a colleague. Relaxed and smiling, the German executive charged with turning around the fortunes of the iconic British team is less than a year into the role.
He is clearly enjoying the opportunity to apply 40 years of experience working on motorsport programmes for BMW, Sauber and Porsche, not to mention those multiple World Rally Championships for Ford and Volkswagen. It’s a track record which proved irresistible to Williams’ new owners, Dorilton Capital…
GP Racing: You have said you were considering slowing down prior to taking on this role at Williams. How has the experience been?
Jost Capito: For me retirement wouldn’t have meant that I’m not doing anything anymore and staying at home. I got my enduro motorbikes ready, including my old enduro bike from 1978 that I own, to do the classic enduro championships. So I would have been pretty active. Also some people wanted to work with me – a bit here, a bit there – so I had some really good ideas what to do that would have kept me more than busy. And I was really fine to do that.
But then when I got the call and was asked ‘can you talk about the CEO role at Williams?’ First of all you cannot say no. As a kid you have
