What do you get when you put four motorsport fans around one table? An interview that overruns and ends with Cambridge Union committee members preparing to deliver the death-dealing blow: ‘On that point, let’s wrap things up!’ Devastating. Just as F1 presenter Will Buxton was reeling off the “mistakes” of hugely popular Netflix series Drive to Survive.
Want to know something else that happened at a table, one kitted with cutlery and a delicious dinner back in 2015? Catherine Bond Muir came up with the plan to create an all-women’s single-seater racing championship that would eventually be dubbed W Series. Meanwhile, female racer Jamie Chadwick found herself driving in that year’s British GT Championship, just four seasons away from winning the inaugural W Series title in 2019.
Before being speedily ushered into the Union’s debating chamber, Muir had a chance to ponder on the budding life of W Series, her second child after nine-year-old son Hamish. Two years ago, Muir claimed that she “had to create a platform to demonstrate that women are great at motor racing.” From being watched by 340 million households worldwide in its first year, to recently agreeing a multi-year deal with Sky Sports, W Series is rapidly growing stronger and quite clearly demonstrating that women are great at motor racing. If female drivers soon begin to enter F1, however, will that platform still be needed? Is there still a market for W Series if women start joining the more traditional forms of F1 feeder series, such as Formula 2 and 3?
“During the pandemic, however, a number of our drivers were delivery drivers. They have to earn money in-between racing, so what we’re trying to do is make stars of our drivers and increase the sponsorship they get”
“In 2019, I thought we were very much a platform that, if we were successful, we would do ourselves out of a job,” Muir explains. “But I now see the joy and fans that have been built up. Therefore, while it is a platform for people like Jamie [Chadwick] to go on into other series, I believe that W Series should stay in and of itself. We’re often compared against things like sailing and, if you look at Olympic sailing, there are men’s, women’s, and mixed classes, and I don’t see any reason why W Series can’t continue.”
One of the main selling points of W Series that allows racers like two-time champion Chadwick to put their talent in the shop window is its free-to-enter status, affectionately boasting that the only thing their drivers have to take care of is getting themselves to the nearest airport. Summoning the infamous ‘billionaire boys club’ description for F1 against the “absolutely fundamental” role of covered expenses in the success and diversity of W Series, Muir says: “If you look at the boys’ equivalent and the backgrounds of a lot of boys in the single-seater pyramid, they do come from very wealthy backgrounds.
“During the pandemic, however, a number of our drivers were delivery drivers. They have to earn money in between racing, so what we’re trying to do is make stars of our drivers and increase the sponsorship they get. Money goes very quickly, as it is a very, very expensive sport, so the only way that we can get the best drivers in the world is to pay for their expenses.”
“The main thing from my side is making sure that I’m there [in F1] on merit and based on results rather than any form of token gesture. Just because I’m a woman it doesn’t mean it should be any different”
Putting the likes of Chadwick in the F1 spotlight is the cornerstone of Muir’s ambition: “The whole point about W Series is that, once people start believing that there is a pathway for women to get into F1, there will be a lot more financial support for the young girls from eight years old onwards. People are going to put more money into those girls because they believe there’s a pathway, and that’s the theory.”
So, when does Muir believe we’ll see a woman on the grid? “I think the next female F1 driver will be someone who is so fast that people will want to put a lot of money into them. I think the next driver may be nine or ten years old at the moment. A young girl will suddenly appear and attract a lot of money, and it will be that money that will take her through.”
At 23 years of age, reigning W Series champion and current Williams F1 development driver, Jamie Chadwick, keeps her eyes set on F1, despite Muir’s prediction. “The ultimate ambition is still F1,” she admits. “Yet I think where W Series sits outside of F1 and the exposure it gets, a lot of people think that you can go straight from W Series to F1, but there’s still a lot I need to achieve in the sport before I can justify even achieving a seat in F1. The main thing from my side is making sure that I’m there on merit and based on results rather than any form of token gesture. Just because I’m a woman it doesn’t mean it should be any different.”
Chadwick first got behind the wheel at 11 years old, following her brother Oliver into the world of kart racing. “I was fortunate when I started that it was very much a hobby,” she explains. “The rivalry with my brother was probably what I cared about most when I was younger.” Chadwick confesses that she “wasn’t doing it to try to be an F1 driver”, to which she elaborates: “I think the reason for that was, because there wasn’t a female F1 driver, I didn’t see that as an obvious thing that I could necessarily be.” A youthful Chadwick would have had to cast her mind all the way back to Italy’s Lella Lombardi in 1976 for the last time F1 saw a woman in the paddock.
But maybe the 46-year drought is primed to come to an end, as Chadwick is hopeful for the existing crop of youngsters in W Series: “I now look at the young girls coming through and I believe they have such a great opportunity. Even if I’m too late to [get to F1], it’s exciting for the sport to see that.”
“I do not understand why big businesses will still back a boy with half the clear ability that someone like Jamie has, but Jamie is still [somehow] a risk”
Not everyone, however, took warmly to the W Series project. Momentarily flirting with the pitfalls of political incorrectness, Will Buxton delivers a mic-drop statement: “I hated it.” He continues: “I always thought racing was about being quick regardless of whether you’re a man or woman.
“But then I started to think about it,” Buxton remembers, “and you start to wonder: why aren’t there women in F1? Why aren’t there even women in F2 or F3? Because we know there are girls that start in go-karts, so why aren’t they progressing through? This [W Series] does make sense because it is essentially another opportunity for the best female racers in the world, who can’t get that next step in their career, to prove themselves.”
Does he think Chadwick has what it takes to make it to F1? “We’re all sitting here saying ‘we’re all here for equality’. It’s not even about equality, it’s about putting the best racers in the best seats. And Jamie is hands down [one of the best racers], she’s proven it year upon year.
“I don’t think she’s had a fair crack of the whip in F3 yet. I still find it astonishing that big businesses won’t get behind her to the extent to afford a good seat in F3. I do not understand why big businesses will still back a boy with half the clear ability that someone like Jamie has, but Jamie is still [somehow] a risk. I don’t get it. It makes zero sense.”
With pay drivers like Nikita Mazepin and Nicholas Latifi often elbowing their way into the revolving door of F1 admission, it’s difficult to not feel at odds with the decades-long emptiness of female drivers at the top.
As we prepare to bear the tasty fruit of an inaugural Miami Grand Prix this weekend, we will inevitably find ourselves waiting a little longer to see a female driver shake up the F1 grid. But with W Series going from strength to strength and young female racers now having an obvious platform to work towards, we may not be far away from waving goodbye to the greatness of Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, and Sebastian Vettel, and saying hello to the ferociously fast crop of female talent.
