Chadwick stays hopeful with W Series on hold

LONDON: Jamie Chadwick raced McLaren’s Lando Norris in the virtual world at the weekend but COVID19 could put the brakes on hopes of her joining the Formula One driver on track at a real grand prix this season.

Back in February the 21-year-old had spoken of defending her W Series title and then pushing for a Friday first practice slot with the Williams F1 team, where she is a development driver.

The plan was to move up the motorsport ladder in 2021, with whoever wins the all-female series barred from returning after this year.

Now the Briton, who lost 2-1 to Norris in the headto-head event organised by Veloce Esports, can only guess at when she might be back on track with the pandemic putting racing worldwide on hold.

A return to W Series next year is also looking more of a possibility. “I think realistically no-one knows what’s going to happen this year,” Chadwick told Reuters in a telephone interview from home.

“So next year is in the back of my mind and planning

ahead for that just in case is always going to be something that we would do.

“We’re not due to start until the end of May so hopefully with that in mind and the progress that’s being made by everyone, we still might get a season this year.”

The original W Series calendar featured six European rounds from May 29 to Sept 5 with two further races supporting Formula One in Mexico and the United States in October, but that has been ripped up. The German Touring Car (DTM) championship that W Series hooks up with in Europe has revised its calendar to a tentative start at Germany’s Norisring in July and a finale at Italy’s Monza circuit on Nov 15.

Germany has since extended a ban on major events until the end of August, however, while Italy has the world’s second highest COVID-19 death rate after the United States and remains in lockdown.

Formula One’s season has yet to get going, with nine races called off so far.

“The difficulty, and where W Series is doing absolutely the right thing, is no-one really knows when this is going to end so the focus is on basically going by guidelines advised by the government and then making decisions as and when,” said Chadwick.

“With W Series we are a bit reliant on DTM and F1 so that’s a lot of the guidance. “I don’t know how many different countries the girls are from, and obviously every country is in a different situation with regards the virus at the moment, so it’s not going to be easy when things do start to get back to normality.”—Reuters