75 days, 13 hours, 25 minutes. When the light at the end of Circuit Paul Ricard’s pit-lane turns green this Friday to commence W Series’ practice session for the fifth race of the 2022 season in south-eastern France, that is how long it will have been since Jamie Chadwick overtook Emma Kimiläinen for the lead of the season-opener in Miami, USA.
Jamie Chadwick followed up that dramatic initial victory with three dominant lights-to-flag wins in Miami, Barcelona, and Silverstone – topping all seven W Series sessions, including practice and qualifying, along the way – to give her a maximum 100 points so far this term and a commanding 47-point lead over nearest challenger Abbi Pulling in the championship standings with six races remaining.
Jamie will go for her seventh straight W Series race win – a run of success dating back to 23 October 2021 in Austin, Texas, USA – this weekend in Le Castellet, which lies approximately 50km (31 miles) east of France’s second-most populous city, Marseille. The race in support of the Formula 1® Lenovo Grand Prix De France 2022, is the first of back-to-back W Series events – the sixth race of the season takes place at the Hungaroring, Hungary, next weekend (29-30 July) – which conclude the international single-seater motor racing championship for women drivers’ European races for 2022 ahead of F1’s traditional summer break in August.
This will be W Series’ 15th race in Europe but first in France and, while there are no French drivers among the 18 – who represent 10 different nations – on this year’s grid, several of the class of 2022 are familiar with the 5.842km (3.63 miles) Circuit Paul Ricard, which hosted its first F1 Grand Prix in 1971.
Jamie competed there in the Formula Regional European Championship in 2020, finishing all three races inside the top 10. Belen Garcia has contested five races at Paul Ricard – three in the 2019 F4 Spanish Championship, which team-mate Nerea Martí also took part in, and two in last year’s Formula Regional European Championship. Beitske Visser raced there in the Formula V8 3.5 Series in 2014 and 2016, and in the European Le Mans Series in 2020. Abbi, Fabienne Wohlwend, and Emely De Heus have tested at Paul Ricard.
It will be a home race of sorts for British pair Abbi and Alice Powell, who are both members of the BWT Alpine F1 Team which is owned by French automotive company Groupe Renault. This year, Abbi joined Alpine’s Academy and…
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