Women Series: Chadwick Takes Pole Position In Spanish Grand Prix

Jamie Chadwick celebrated her birthday in style by taking pole position for Saturday’s race at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, securing the ninth pole position of her Women Series career. The Briton – who turned 24 today – continued her scintillating form, having won both races at the season-opening double-header in Miami, USA, a fortnight ago.

Those victories gave Jamie a commanding 27-point lead at the top of the championship standings after two of this season’s ten races. She is now perfectly placed to extend that advantage in Saturday’s race at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.

Some other drivers were strong contenders for pole position, too but could not beat Jamie’s time of 1:44.951 with less than five minutes remaining.

She finished ahead of Abbi Pulling, another Briton who was just three-tenths of a second slower than Jamie. Beitske Visser – runner-up to Jamie in W Series’ inaugural season in 2019 – was fourth and the only other driver to get within half a second of Jamie’s pole position time.

Emma Kimiläinen overcame a pressure sensor issue from earlier in the day to be fifth, and she will line up alongside Belen Garcia – who lives only 15km (9.3 miles) away from the circuit in L’Ametlla del Vallès, Barcelona – on the third row.

Fellow Spaniard Marta Garcia was seventh, as Sarah Moore, Jessica Hawkins, and Fabienne Wohlwend completed the top 10. Nerea Martí – who is second in the championship – will start her home race from 11th on the grid.

Having staged pre-season testing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya at the start of March, a close battle was expected throughout the field this weekend – when W Series supports the Formula 1® Pirelli Gran Premio de Espana 2022 – and Friday’s qualifying session didn’t disappoint.

Using cars supplied by Toyota Gazoo Racing New Zealand (TGRNZ) for the first time, the drivers took to the circuit for qualifying with the track temperature at 45 degrees Celsius and tire degradation high.

Jamie topped the timing screens after all the drivers had completed one flying lap, but she couldn’t improve on her second run, and it was Abbi held the top spot with a third of the 30-minute session gone.

Belen was the first driver to come in for new tires with 19 minutes remaining. That prompted a flurry of activity in the pit lane around the halfway stage when the top five of Abbi, Alice, Jamie, Belen, and Jessica were separated by less than two-tenths of a second.

As the session entered its final 10 minutes, Sarah hit the front by six-tenths of a second despite running into traffic in the final sector. Alice went quicker by two tenths, but just down the road, her team-mate Jessica set two purple sectors at the start of her lap to improve by another two tenths.

Alice responded with five minutes remaining by knocking three more tenths off the benchmark, only for Jamie to beat that by four one-hundredths of a second on her first run on fresh rubber.

Alice briefly held the top spot again, but Jamie returned to the head of the field for the final time with less than three minutes left when she became the first and only driver to dip under 1min 45secs.

Earlier in the day, Jamie led the way in the practice session when her best lap of 1:45.517 saw her beat Belen by more than one-tenth of a second. Abbi and Alice were the two other drivers to get within half a second of Jamie’s morning benchmark. After eight minutes, the practice session was red-flagged when Nerea beached her car in the gravel after spinning at Turn 10, causing a seven-minute delay.

TGRNZ is supporting W Series with the logistics required to get racing cars to F1 race weekends in the most sustainable way this year. As well as being used by W Series at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya this weekend, Toyota’s FT60 cars will also be at Suzuka, Japan, in October when W Series will stage its first race in Asia.

W Series uses identical Tatuus chassis to the Toyota Racing Series, but with different engines, and the cars being shipped for the two events retain their Toyota engines. Sharing cars between the two championships helps manage logistics and enables the use of sea instead of air and freight, keeping the series’ carbon footprint as low as possible. 

QUALIFYING RESULTS

POSITION	DRIVER NUMBER	DRIVER	COUNTRY	LAPS	BEST TIME
1	55	Jamie Chadwick	British	15	1:44.951
2	27	Alice Powell	British	13	1:45.280
3	49	Abbi Pulling	British	15	1:45.410
4	95	Beitske Visser	Dutch	15	1:45.449
5	7	Emma Kimilainen	Finnish	13	1:45.549
6	22	Belen Garcia	Spanish	13	1:45.562
7	19	Marta Garcia	Spanish	15	1:45.630
8	26	Sarah Moore	British	15	1:45.636
9	21	Jessica Hawkins	British	13	1:45.659
10	5	Fabienne Wohlwend	Liechtensteiner	14	1:45.882
11	32	Nerea Marti	Spanish	13	1:46.137
12	97	Bruna Tomaselli	Brazilian	12	1:46.175
13	63	Tereza Babickova	Czech	14	1:46.179
14	10	Juju Noda	Japanese	15	1:46.185
15	4	Emely De Heus	Dutch	14	1:46.513
16	8	Chloe Chambers	American	14	1:46.610
17	9	Bianca Bustamante	Filipino	13	1:47.417
18	44	Abbie Eaton	British	9	1:47.517

Jamie Chadwick (Jenner Racing, 24, UK) said:

“I’m thrilled. That’s what I wished for when the W Series staff presented me with my birthday cake earlier! I couldn’t blow out the candle, but I wished for pole position, and I got it. It was quite a tricky session. I went on old tires initially, and it was a massive step from the old to the new tires, and I knew it would be okay if I didn’t make a mistake. But it’s quite hard not to make a mistake! On the new tires, I just had loads more confidence. Tomorrow will be all about tire management, but I’m happy that on the new tires, we can get there.”

Alice Powell (Click2Drive Bristol Street Motors Racing W Series Team, 29, UK) said:

“It’s frustrating. I struggled with a long brake pedal for most of that session, so I kept locking up, and I had to keep adjusting the bias. But in some corners, especially out of 13 and 14 – where I couldn’t tap the pedal – and it was quite long when I got to the chicane. I kept struggling with oversteer a lot as well. Then we had one more push lap, and Bianca [Bustamante] was on the racing line going slowly. It’s frustrating, but we improved from practice, and hopefully, we will move forward again tomorrow.”

Abbi Pulling (Racing X, 19, UK) said:

“It was a really good session, and I’m happy. I started great as I was on pole on the first set of tires. Then my headphones came out and unplugged, so I had no communication from my engineer. I didn’t see the pit board, and I pitted a lap too late, but I thought this was about the time we needed to pit. I came in and luckily only lost one lap, but it wasn’t ideal. There are still some things for me to look at because I want my tires to last for the whole race, so we will see how that goes. I’m obviously over the moon compared to what happened in Miami, so hopefully, we can convert this into some good points.”