WSeries opens 2022 season at Formula One Miami Grand Prix on May 6-8 marking milestone achievement of locking in 10 Rounds for the 3rd season all female single-seater Series. The line-up of 18 driver’s includes 9 newly selected women whose talent and skills delivered just enough prowess to impress Racing Director Dave Ryan at the Series pre-season tests at Arizona, USA and Barcelona, Spain earlier this year.
With 12 drivers from 2021 season making automatic selection for the following season, including current WSeries 2x Champion Jamie Chadwick– anticipation is building on how racing will play out in the double header at F1 Miami GP. 5 newly selected drivers will make their debut appearance within their respective WSeries Teams consisting of: Chloe Chambers (USA) joining Jamie Chadwick for Jenner Racing, Teresa Babickova (CZE) joining Emma Kimilainen for Puma, Emely De Heus (NED) joining Beitske Visser for Sirin, and youngest of group- 16 year old Juju Noda (Japan) pairing with debut driver Bianca Bustamante (PHI) for Academy Team.
2021 WSeries Vice Champion and loved Brit driver Alice Powell pairs with fellow country-driver Jess Hawkins for Click 2 Drive/Bristol Street Motors, and the talents of Spanish pair Nerea Marti– 4th last season- races with Belen Garcia for Quantfury– both drivers showing promising results in their debut races last year.
Completing the driver/Team line-up are: Fabienne Wohlwend and Spanish driver Marta Garcia for cortDAO, Abi Pulling whose debut race at 2021 WSeries at Silverstone really impressed those watching pairs with Bruna Tomaselli for Racing X and Sarah Moore, whose 5th finish last season will be well matched with compatriot Abbie Eaton racing for Scuderia W Team.
Most important for the sustainability of WSeries has been the hard work behind the scenes, not only the successful result as support category within selected F1 GP Rounds, but also gaining financial backing within developed return of investment portfolios. Growth of WSeries from 6 Rounds in 2019 to 10 Rounds in 2022, double headers at opening and final Rounds at 2022 F1 GP’s of Miami and Mexico City, along with establishment of Team based structure enabling 2 female drivers supported by outside entities has ensured remarkable rise to top echelons of Formula racing.
Equally, inclusion of support by Toyota Gazoo New Zealand, who will provide 18 extra cars freighted by sea to 2 Rounds- F1 Barcelona GP and F1 Suzuka GP- aids the enormous task of meeting targets for getting cars from GP to GP, while at the same time sharing resources from a Junior Formula Championship whose car specs equal that of WSeries.
With little over a week until 2022 WSeries at F1 Miami GP, successful results have already been achieved for the fully-funded all female Series which has gravitated to racing a 3rd season. Knocking out additional terms of racing over 10 Rounds through innovative exploration on who and how outside entities can benefit from supporting the Series, has to be admired in the context of an unpredictable economic Motorsport climate.
Header Photo: WSeries driver line-up Image: WSeries
Words: Sharon Cox.
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