Alice Powell ended Jamie Chadwick’s remarkable eight race W Series wins streak and became the only driver other than the championship leader to win a race in 2022.
Powell had taken her first pole of the season by narrowly beating Beitske Visser. Nerea Marti and Marta Garcia started on the second row, with the top two drivers in the standings, Jamie Chadwick and Abbi Pulling, in fifth and sixth.Heavy rain meant that the race started behind the Safety Car. Nerea Marti skidded off track, taking out an advertising board and rejoining in fourth, behind Garcia.
When the Safety Car came in for a rolling start, Powell got away with the lead before Marti went off track again and lost places to Chadwick and Pulling. By turn three, things only got worse for Marti after she spun and dropping to dead last.
Chadwick passed Garcia for third with 19 minutes to go, driving clean around her and immediately closing in to less than a second of from Powell. Ten minutes later she made a move around turn one for second, demoting Visser.
Emma Kimilainen made contact with Jess Hawkins, spinning her around on track and causing Kimilainen to retire from the race. Bianca Bustamante also retired after running wide and damaging her car, prompting a Safety Car period.
The Safety Car came in with five minutes remaining and Powell held the lead on the restart. Chadwick drew within four tenths of a second of her with one minute remaining but, ultimately, Powell managed to extend the lap to three quarters of a second and see the chequered flag first. Visser completed the podium, her second time on the podium this season.
A post-race investigation was announced by the stewards over an incident involving overtaking under the Safety Car between Scuderia W team mates Sarah Moore and Abbie Eaton.
Chadwick’s second-place finish extends her lead over Pulling in the standings, while Powell’s win moves her from sixth to third in the championship.
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W Series race results
Driver | Team | |
---|---|---|
1 | Alice Powell | Click2Drive |
2 | Jamie Chadwick | Jenner |
3 | Beitske Visser | Sirin |
4 | Marta Garcia | CORTdao |
5 | Abbi Pulling | Racing X |
6 | Fabienne Wohlwent | CORTdao |
7 | Sarah Moore | Scuderia W |
8 | Abbie Eaton | Scuderia W |
9 | Juju Noda | W Series Academy |
10 | Bruna Tomaselli | Racing X |
11 | Chloe Chambers | Jenner |
12 | Nerea Marti | Quantfury |
13 | Belen Garcia | Quantfury |
14 | Jess Hawkins | Click2Drive |
15 | Tereza Babickova | Puma |
16 | Emely de Heus | Sirin |
DNF | Bianca Bustamante | W Series Academy |
DNF | Emma Kimilainen | Puma |
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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
MaddMe (@)
30th July 2022, 22:55
If it hadn’t been for the (potentially unnecessary) lengthy safety car towards the end of the race, I’m pretty certain Jamie Chadwick would have found her way passed Alice Powell. Jamie Chadwick is in her own league in the W Series and really should be given a viable opportunity in in one of the major seasons.
As much as I would like to see her get to F1, given her age, I’d say it would be very unlikely.
Trido (@)
31st July 2022, 0:03
She had an opportunity and she could barely get near the podium. There were four people in her 2020 Formula Regional European Championship team. The other three, including Arthur Leclerc, occupied the top three positions in the championship with Jamie in 9th. Hell, she was beaten by two drivers that only raced half the season! Jamie simply isn’t good enough for a junior formula let alone F3.
AlanD
30th July 2022, 23:58
I increasingly feel W Series is a token gesture rather than a genuine attempt to address the gender imbalance in motor sport. When there hasn’t been a female driver in the top tier of motorsport for over 40 years, surely that must point to a serious lack of opportunity and lack of commitment to equality.
Trido (@)
31st July 2022, 0:06
Or maybe, just maybe, it is because generally speaking, women are less interested in watching and participating in motorsport.
AlanD
31st July 2022, 2:00
Trido, even if they are, it doesn’t explain the absence of women in F1, because F1 is looking only at the very small elite selection. Consider football. Countries with small populations, e.g. Sweden, 10 million, can field a team of superstars capable of beating a team from, say, football-mad Brazil, 200 million. The Brazilian team might, on average, be slightly better, but it isn’t guaranteed. An individual from the smaller country can have more individual ability than any player from a larger country, and whether you have 10 million or 200 million to choose from, you still only get 11 players in your team.
Even if you had 100 males interested to every female, that still doesn’t explain why not one woman has been an F1 driver in the last 45 years. In fact, if you looked at the fan survey that F1 carried out, the male female split is 82% male, 18% female, so more like 5 males interested in motorsport for every female, and the female percentage grows a little every year.
Chris Horton
31st July 2022, 2:03
Great drive from Jamie today, the late safety car cost her a genuine shot at the win in my opinion.
Come on F3/F2, step up and give her the chance she deserves.