Visser keeps her cool to seal win
Beitske Visser (Sirin Racing W Series Team, 27, NED) took her first victory of the 2022 W Series season in a dramatic seventh race of the year in Singapore, where championship leader Jamie Chadwick (Jenner Racing, 24, UK) retired from a W Series race for the first time.
The second win of Beitske’s W Series career – and her first since the second race of the inaugural season in May 2019 – came after she took the lead at the opening corner, before holding off a strong challenge from Alice Powell (Click2drive Bristol Street Motors Racing W Series Team, 29, UK). Pole-sitter Marta Garcia (CORTDAO Racing W Series Team, 21, ESP) completed the podium at Marina Bay.
Beitske’s victory saw her take second place outright in the championship standings, seven points clear of Alice in third, and 50 behind leader Jamie, inset, with three races remaining and a maximum 75 points to be won.
Reigning double champion Jamie had the chance to seal her third straight title at W Series’ firstever race in Asia but, having qualified in eighth, she crashed out of the race in the closing stages when running in sixth place.
Jamie’s retirement resulted in a frantic finish, with the field bunched after a safety-car period. Belen García (Quantfury W Series Team, 22, ESP) finished fourth but, behind her, compatriots Jessica Hawkins (Click2drive Bristol Street Motors Racing W Series Team, 27, UK), Abbi Pulling (Racing X, 19, UK), and Sarah Moore (Scuderia W, 28, UK) crossed the line little more than one tenth of a second apart in fifth, sixth and seventh places respectively. Fabienne Wohlwend (CORTDAO Racing W Series Team, 24, LIE), Emma Kimiläinen (Puma W Series Team, 33, FIN), and Abbie Eaton (Scuderia W, 30, UK) completed the top 10.
After Saturday’s rain-curtailed qualifying session, the only change to the starting grid saw Emma serve a two-place grid penalty given to her after the previous race in Hungary for causing a collision. That dropped her from 10th to 12th and promoted Chloe Chambers (Jenner Racing, 18, USA) and Abbie by one place each.
Marta started from pole position for the second time in her W Series career as a result of her brilliant lap in torrential rain on Saturday, but the outlook was very different 24 hours later when the race of 30 minutes plus one lap began in dry conditions.
Beitske had the better getaway from the front row and overtook Marta on the inside going into turn one. Jamie made up two places in the first three corners, moving up to sixth by overtaking title rival Abbi around the outside at turn three. Further back, Juju Noda (W Series Academy, 16, JPN) retired after eight corners with damage to the front-right of her car. After the race, she was given a two-place grid penalty for causing a collision, to be applied at the next event.
By the end of the first lap, Beitske had built a lead of 1.3 seconds over Marta, who was coming under extreme pressure from Alice. Belen and Jessica followed the leading trio, with Jamie 3.6 seconds off the front in sixth. Alice set back-to-back fastest laps to close to within half a second of Marta, and the pressure finally told with 21 minutes of the race remaining. Alice took second
place with a bold overtaking move before the pair went under the grandstand in the final sector. Alice was 2.5 seconds behind leader Beitske but, now in clear air, she reduced that deficit to less than a second at the halfway stage. Jamie was seven seconds off the lead and under pressure from Abbi after running wide at turn seven.
As the final third of the race began, Alice was three tenths of a second behind Beitske having spent three laps on the leader’s tail but being unable to make an overtaking move stick. The pace slowed slightly as the leading runners began to suffer from tyre degradation and lack of grip.
With five minutes left, Abbi was the only driver to set a lap time
under 2:15.000 and that saw her close to within three-tenths of Jamie, who was the same margin behind Jessica. Jamie attempted to overtake Jessica by going late on the brakes at turn seven, but she locked a wheel and, despite having some run-off on the exit of the corner, collided with the barriers and retired from the race.
That brought out the safety car as Jamie’s car was lifted away, and the safety car returned to the pit lane only leaving time for a final-lap shootout. Beitske made a good restart to retain her lead going into turn one and, although Alice closed to within three-tenths in the final sector, Beitske kept her cool to seal victory.
■ Toyota Gazoo Racing New Zealand
is supporting W Series with the logistics required to get racing cars to F1 race weekends in the most sustainable way. Toyota sent 18 of its FT60 cars to be used by W Series at the third race of the season at the Circuit de Barcelonacatalunya, Spain, in May, and again for the W Series, which was supporting the Formula 1® Singapore Airlines Singapore Grand Prix 2022 last weekend. W Series uses identical Tatuus chassis to the Toyota Racing Series, but with different engines, and the cars used in Singapore retained their Toyota engines. Sharing cars between the two championships helps logistics and enables the use of sea, rather than air freight, to keep the carbon footprint as low as possible.