Jamie Chadwick claimed her fifth win of the W Series season at Paul Ricard, retaining her perfect record in 2022.
Chadwick had claimed pole in the Friday evening qualifying session, however, she was demoted to third on the grid after crossing the pit lane exit line. Beitske Visser subsequently became the pole sitter, with Nerea Marti joining her on the front row. Marta Garcia lined up alongside Chadwick in fourth.A collision off the line saw Abbie Eaton’s race end in the opening metres. Eaton got a good start, making progress up the grid before hitting Marta Garcia’s car and being launched breifly into the air before slamming back down onto the track, damaging her car.
Chadwick overtook Visser out of turn three and claimed the lead into turn four, before a Safety Car was called to retrieve Eaton’s car.
The Safety Car came in with 22 minutes of race time remaining, with Chadwick holding the lead. However, it was a relatively short lived return to green flag racing.
Chloe Chambers retired from the race following contact with Emely de Heus, who was given a ten-second stop-go penalty for the collision. Chambers’ stranded car prompted another, relatively brief, Safety Car intervention.
The restart saw Visser challenge Chadwick for the lead, briefly gaining the upper hand but Chadwick was able to cut back at Visser through turn six and re-extend her lead, while Visser’s race began to fade.
Nerea Marti moved herself back into podium contention with a move around turn four to demote Visser. With ten minutes to go, Chadwick had a two second lead and claimed the fastest lap of the race
On the penultimate lap, team mates Fabienne Wohlwend and Marta Garcia went side-by-side, with Wohlwend briefly gaining the upper hand through turn six before Garcia reclaimed the position.
Chadwick crossed the line 2.4 seconds ahead of Garcia, with Marti completing the podium. She has now won every race of this W Series season and hold a commanding championship lead of 70 points over Pulling.
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
W Series race results
| Driver | Team | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Jamie Chadwick | Jenner |
| 2 | Belen Garcia | Quantfury |
| 3 | Nerea Marti | Quantfury |
| 4 | Beitske Visser | Sirin |
| 5 | Alice Powell | Click2Drive |
| 6 | Marta Garcia | CORTdao |
| 7 | Fabienne Wohlwent | CORTdao |
| 8 | Sarah Moore | Scuderia W |
| 9 | Abbi Pulling | Racing X |
| 10 | Jessica Hawkins | Click2Drive |
| 11 | Juju Noda | W Series Academy |
| 12 | Emma Kimilainen | Puma |
| 13 | Juju Noda | W Series Academy |
| 14 | Tereza Babickova | Puma |
| 15 | Bianca Bustamante | W Series Academy |
| 16 | Emely de Heus | Sirin |
| 17 | Abbie Eaton | Scuderia W |
| DNF | Chloe Chambers | Jenner |
| 7 | Jessica Hawkins | Click2Drive |
Advert | Become a RaceFans supporter and
W Series
- All-female championship W Series goes into administration
- From F1 to Formula Ford, 2022 was the year of the championship anti-climax
- As W Series stumbles, will F1 Academy pick up the baton for women racers?
- F1 and FIA should step in to help W Series – Hamilton
- W Series cancels final races of 2022 and declares Chadwick champion
Sham (@sham)
23rd July 2022, 15:26
Jamie really needs a drive in a more competitive series – she’s a class above the rest of W series.
What’s the point of promoting women racers in the W series if someone who is clearly the best out there can’t get a drive in a mainstream series?
Ajayrious (@ajayrious)
23rd July 2022, 15:48
The other drivers just made it so easy for Chadwick at the start. It’s like the other women had lost the race to her in their heads before the start even happened.
It reminded me of when a driver like Schumacher or Hamilton starts at the back and other drivers just wave them through because they have such an inferiority complex.
For the health of the series and her own career Chadwick needs to move on.
bernasaurus (@bernasaurus)
23rd July 2022, 16:57
I honestly think she’d be competitive in F2. I obviously don’t know how those behind W Series envisage things, nor her backers, or what they really want from it.
But I think her fighting Vips or Vesti or whomever for 6th or grabbing a podium in F2 looks better for everyone involved than her just walking the W Series title. If she fails in F2, then nothing really gained or lost – though I doubt she would fail given the right team.
I just think her winning 7 races in a row in W Series is less productive for promoting women in motorsport than what her finishing 3rd in an F2 race would do.
I don’t think Jamie is going to win an F1 title, but she has the potential to hold a special place going forward in how gender is perceived in motor racing.
Valkrider (@)
23rd July 2022, 18:03
Surely it is time to give her a run in an 2021 F1 car or in FP1 to see how good she really is?
AlanD
23rd July 2022, 21:25
If F1 represents the pinnacle of motorsport, the world’s very best drivers, you have to ask how could it ever be possible that the world’s top 20 drivers plus 10 reserve drivers all just happen to be men? I cannot believe it is due to gender differences in driving ability or physical strength, so the only other conclusion I can come to is that it is lack of opportunity and institutional bias against women drivers. The W series may have been set up with good intentions to create opportunities for women in motorsport, but instead it has become an excuse, “you’ve got your own series now, and you’ll get 20 minutes of barely publicised TV coverage ridiculously early on Sunday morning,…. what more do you want?”
If F1 truly believes in embracing diversity and “we race as one”, then they need to take a long hard look at themselves and ask how they’ll address gender inequality. For starters, we’ve seen this weekend how Mercedes had to sit out Hamilton in FP1 to give their reserve driver some track time, as required by F1 regs. Well why cannot they do something similar with W series drivers on the race weekends when W series doesn’t get it’s own events?
Markus (@aesto)
24th July 2022, 5:04
Well, if Cordeel, Doohan, Bolukbasi and Natori can only manage bottom 4 in Formula W, then surely Jamie Chadwick must be good enough for F2 ;)