When the all-female W Series was announced in 2018 no one expected it to be smooth sailing. Making waves in motorsport’s boys’ club was always rather the point. Yet few imagined the impact it would make. Going global in only its second season is remarkable.
This week the series was awarded the John Nicol Trophy at the British Racing and Sports Car Club awards, honouring the organisation considered to have made the most influential contribution to furthering motorsport. It joins the awards the series has already been given from the UK Guild of Motoring Writers for its services to motoring, and the Autosport Pioneering and Innovation award.
Quite a haul after only one season. In its inaugural year the W Series consisted of six races, all taking place at meetings of the German Touring Car (DTM) championship in Europe, with 20 drivers competing. Britain’s Jamie Chadwick took the title at the final race at Brands Hatch in August. At the opener in Hockenheim the number of females making their way to the W series paddock was notable. By Brands there was a huge swathe thronging the cars and drivers. That the series had been successful was impossible to ignore.
Criticised as unnecessary segregation by some, the series has almost completely silenced its detractors. Last week the FIA confirmed it will award super licence points to the top eight drivers this season. The championship winner will receive 15. To be able to race in F1, 40 are required. It was a major validation of the championship and a huge step for W Series, whose aim is ultimately to help a woman driver reach F1.
Shortly before the FIA confirmed the points, the series announced that its 2020 calendar will consist of eight races. Six with DTM but, significantly, the final two to be held at the F1 meetings in the US and Mexico. From having a handful of women drivers competing at senior level worldwide three years ago to a 20-woman grid at an F1 race is extraordinary.
Last year drivers such as Britain’s Alice Powell, Fabienne Wohlwend of Liechtenstein and the American Sabré Cook acknowledged that it had revitalised careers halted though lack of cash. Not only will all three compete again in the W series in 2020 but they have all also secured drives in other championships this year.”
Cook, who is 25 and from Colorado, was unequivocal. “When W Series came along it was all or nothing for me,” she said. “It saved my driving career and has been a key thing in my life.”
Crucially she recognises the drivers are all part of a bigger picture, that of inspiring the next generation. “I know a lot of young girls who are trying to figure out how to do it,” she said. “I was the same way, there is not a direct path. W Series coming into the US and more young girls in the States seeing that it is viable will be huge, it will give them something to aim for.”
The force behind the series is its chief executive, Catherine Bond Muir. There was a simple premise behind the plans she began making in 2016. “I researched women in motorsports and I was taken aback at how few there had been. It seemed to be something that was so iniquitous and frankly such an obvious wrong that it needed to be corrected.”
The series’s success has not happened in a vacuum. Women’s football, rugby and cricket have seen exponential increases in popularity in the past decade, attracting a young audience not bound to the tired shackles of preconception. Those sports have generated a momentum that now seems inexorable.
“People’s perception of women’s sport has changed significantly in the last three years,” Bond Muir added. “The first evidence was the women’s World Cup, when people were talking about watching ‘the football’ not ‘the women’s football’. I feel people are like that with W Series, that it has cracking racing and is entertaining, but that we are not solely defined by being a women’s series.”
Cook is eagerly anticipating her home race at the Circuit of the Americas, and the increase in races also reflects the international feel of the W Series. This season 18 of the 20 drivers have already been selected. They represent 12 nationalities, a range both healthy and vital in providing inspiration across the globe. Without W Series covering all the costs it is impossible to imagine such a range having such a platform.
There is a long way to go but as attention turns to F1 car launches next week, in the background the W Series will continue building towards making a difference and ensuring it makes its mark in the US and Mexico.
“It is about promoting women to fulfil their potential and show the world what they are capable off,” Bond Muir said. “If we can help women around the world achieve that, well, I don’t want to appear arrogant but I think we can have an impact right across the world.”
