Jamie Chadwick | W Series | Motorsport | Is It Fast

Two-Time W Series Champion Jamie Chadwick recently announced that she would be returning to W Series for a third season.

Whilst many have celebrated at the announcement of this news, I can’t help but feel deflated by it. Let me explain why.

When W Series first happened back in 2019, it was executed with the intention of promoting more women into motorsport and to help begin levelling the playing field.

It did a pretty decent job during its inaugural season with a close Championship battle between Chadwick and Visser throughout the year showcasing there was indeed some great female talent out there. It just needed to be showcased on a big enough platform.

Image: Newspress

W Series then got a big promotion when it came back in 2021 as it would be racing on the same weekends as Formula 1, thus allowing the drivers to be seen on an international stage and to really show women across the world that there was a path for them into motorsport.

After another close Championship battle, this time with fellow Brit Alice Powell, Chadwick took her second W Series title at the final race in Austin. Following this, many expected her to at least make the step up into Formula 3. This included Jamie herself who said as much at the time.

“I think realistically we want to look at getting into a feeder series to Formula 1…so something like Formula 2, Formula 3 maybe is the next logical step.” – Jamie Chadwick

At the time of writing, there are still 3 seats available for the 2022 Formula 3 season. And for the life of me, I can’t see why none of these three teams have snapped her up. After all, Chadwick has competed in W Series, Extreme E, Formula Regional in Europe and has been a Williams Academy driver for some time now.

Plus with W Series acting as a pathway for women to make it into both Formula 3 and Formula 2 with the trajectory of getting into Formula 1, Chadwick’s promotion to the next rung of the ladder only makes logical sense.

So this is why her announcement to join Jenner Racing in the 2022 W Series Championship is so disappointing. With two titles under her belt, she has nothing left to prove in the series. If she wins the 2022 Championship, nobody will be surprised and if she loses, it could do more harm than good to her reputation as one of the most exciting up and coming racing drivers.

Chadwick herself recently addressed this in a video she posted on social media where she said she shared everyone’s frustration with the inability to progress into the next racing series. She cited funding and sponsorship as a big reason for this not happening.

This again baffles me because surely a two-time W Series Champion who many believe will be the first female F1 driver since Susie Wolff would be the ideal driver to get behind if you’re looking at sponsoring one.

Companies and wealthy individuals from all over the world should be clamouring at the chance to help her. Yet they aren’t and I just can’t fathom why.

What makes Chadwick’s W Series return more frustrating is the fact that last year, rookie W Series drivers Ira Sidorkova and Nerea Marti both got to take part in a Formula 3 test at Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours in France back in November. This is part of their rookie program which sees them guaranteed to race in W Series for two full seasons before they look to make the step up into Formula 3.

Image: Newspress

Naturally, it’s good that Sidorkova and Marti got this opportunity as both are exciting new talents in the world of motorsport. But it seems silly that Chadwick didn’t get to do it too.

As part of the prize for winning the W Series Championship, Chadwick got to go and test World Endurance Championship cars in Bahrain instead. Don’t get me wrong, this is still pretty cool but it’s not the single seater racing experience we as fans were hoping Chadwick would get.

So for 2022, unless there’s a sudden change, it looks like Chadwick is a bit stuck. One wonders what else she has to do to prove to an F3 or an F2 team that she’s worthy of a seat with them. Sophia Flörsch drove in F3 back in 2020 and she didn’t have the same accolades that Chadwick has. Needless to say, Flörsch deserved the chance in F3 too but also proves the point even more that if she does, then surely Chadwick does too.

For now, all we can hope for is that Chadwick gets the opportunity sometime later in the year to take part in an F2 or F3 weekend for one reason or another and can then show everyone why they should have offered her a seat at the beginning of the year.

If not, questions will start to be raised as to how exactly W Series is helping these awesome racing drivers progress further up the motorsport food chain – and that wouldn’t cast a good light on the racing series or the wider motorsport community at all.

Author: Thiemo Albers-Daly