The Grove-based outfit had gone into the F1 finale in Abu Dhabi hoping to head off a late-season surge from closest rival AlphaTauri in the fight for seventh in the teams' battle.
Although Williams failed to score any points at a track that was not particularly well suited to its car, Yuki Tsunoda’s eighth-placed finish was not enough for its Italian rival to overtake it.
Speaking after the race, Vowles said that, while the prize money uptick was more than welcome, he said there was a bigger significance to the team delivering on its late-season objective.
“Probably the most important thing is that it sets the foundations for the team - that they have something to build on now,” he told Autosport.
“You lose out on wind tunnel time and it's not the financial element that we are particularly worried about.
“But what I wanted them to do was to stand up and go: this is the start of our journey. By the way, we're not going backwards from here. This is a new de facto standard and a spring for us.”
While the estimated $9 million prize bonus for finishing seventh will not be a game-changer for Williams as it needs investment many times that to fight at the front, Vowles says that it has a wider significance for team owner Dorilton Capital.
“It always helps having money in the bank account,” he said. “But I've been very open and public about the fact that we're throwing away, in terms of losses, tens of millions.
“But we're here to invest, to go back to the front, whatever that costs us in the short term.
"What it does is it pretty much helps the discussion when I'm going behind the scenes and asking for $100m more, which is the numbers we're sort of talking about. It makes a massive difference for that.”
Source: Autosport