Women-only open-wheel race series set
20 competitors in new W Series will battle for US$500,000 top prize beginning next spring
A new race series called the W Series is hoping to get more women who are interested in motorsports to participate.
The series will start in 2019 and will be free-of-charge to enter, but the series winner takes home a US$500,000 piece of the league’s $1.5-million prize fund, and bolsters her hopes of moving up in the racing world to compete in Formula One.
Entrants will complete a selection process that consists of track tests, simulators, fitness trials and engineering tests to narrow the field down to 20 of the best female drivers to compete in the series.
Tatuus T-318 Formula 3 cars with 1.8-litre turbocharged four-cylinder engines and sixspeed sequential gearboxes will be used for the series. The 1.8-L turbo-fours don’t sound like they would be very fast, but these little cars will beat a lot of the supercars available today on a track, thanks to their low weight and downforce.
The first season of the series will take place in Europe at some of the continent’s most famous circuits, and will expand to North America, Asia and Australia in the coming seasons.
The W Series was created by sports lawyer Catherine Bond Muir, who’s spent the past three years putting it together, and assembling a pretty stellar team that includes former F1 driver David Coulthard, F1 design engineer Adrian Newey, F1 and GT team manager Dave Ryan, and F1 journalist Matt Bishop.
The last woman to compete in Formula One was Lella Lombardi in 1976, and only five women have ever raced a Formula One car.
The first season of W Series will start in the spring.