Jamie Chadwick on how F1 can learn from the W Series

Jamie Chadwick’s stock is on a stratospheric rise. The 21-year-old has won two of the three races in the inaugural W Series championship so far – finishing second in the other at Zolder – and just last weekend she took a class victory at the Nürburgring 24 Hours with Aston Martin.

She’s got the world at her feet, and has already secured a spot as a development driver for the Williams Formula 1 team, but the Brit racer certainly isn’t shying away from weighing in on the sport’s future.

“I think I would want spending cuts in F1, and I would want there to be less freedom in terms of what the teams have control over,” Chadwick told TopGear.com.

“Ideally, power units would have to be more or less the same. It’ll never happen, but it’d be good if there were more standardised parts to become more like a single-make championship. 

“Then the drivers have more influence than the teams, which is what you see in Formula 2 and Formula 3 at the moment, where the racing is really strong.”

In that respect, Chadwick thinks that F1 could learn from the W Series (where all drivers race in the same Alfa Romeo-powered Tatuus F3 T-318) to solve its problem of single-team domination.

“I’m really enjoying the W Series, it’s quite a different racing experience in terms of the way it’s run, but it’s almost more enjoyable because everything is centrally run - they control everything in terms of the car and the teams. So really you just have to turn up and do your job as a racing driver. 

“There’s no politics around it.”

That sounds good to us. There’s no doubt that F1 needs to make changes in order to encourage closer racing and a return to the drama-filled days of old. However, Chadwick still maintains that a seat on the grid would be her ultimate goal.

“I’d say that F1 is still the pinnacle for me, although the exciting thing about motorsport is there are so many different avenues. I think having been out at the Nürburgring at the weekend with Aston Martin, I’d happily race there every day of the week. Then also with the new hypercars coming to Le Mans that’s something to look out for, and Formula E too – there’s a lot to be excited about as a young driver.

“My involvement with Williams is very much me learning as much as I can at this point in my career – which is still a very junior level.

“For me to be able to utilise the time in the full F1-spec simulator and being in and around the whole team is so exciting. At this point I absolutely love it and it does make that dream to become a Formula 1 driver even stronger.”

Time will tell of course, but don’t be surprised to see Chadwick in an F1 race sometime soon. For the sake of the fans too, we hope someone out there is listening to her rule suggestions…