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Chadwick wins first W Series race
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Jamie Chadwick, who wears a Stilo ST5 FN 8860 helmet supplied by Nicky Grist Motorsports, has won the first ever W Series race.
The 20-year old racer from Gloucestershire, who is a British F3 race winner, British GT Championship GT4 class title winner and reigning MRF Challenge champion, started from pole and mastered the tricky conditions at Hockenheim to win a closely fought opening round.
Very wet conditions in qualifying were a challenge for all the W Series drivers, but Bath-born Jamie was at the top of the time sheets for most of the 25-minute session, Fabienne Wohlwend (from Liechtenstein) claiming the other front-row starting position and another Brit, Sarah Moore, third on the grid.
As weather conditions improved ahead of the race and the 18 cars lined up behind the start-line, nerves were understandably kicking in for all the drivers, but they did not show it. Jamie made a perfect start to lead the field; however, a brake issue for her at the hairpin gave Sarah a window of opportunity to steal the lead, which she duly did. Then, still on lap one, a collision at Turn Six resulted in Megan Gilkes (CAN) and Emma Kimiläinen (FIN) retiring and the Safety Car being deployed so that their damaged cars could be moved out of the way.
Then all eyes turned to Alice Powell (GBR) who climbed from P6 to P2, creating an exciting Brit-versus-Brit-versus-Brit battle at the head of the field. But Jamie fought hard to restore her lead, Alice hot on her heels in second and Marta Garcia (ESP) storming through to third, a line-up that then continued all the way to the chequered flag.
“The win feels great,” said Jamie. “Going into the race, the conditions were tricky which made things a bit more difficult but off the back of qualifying and the back of yesterday, I really was pushing to get the first win.
“Losing the lead to Sarah caught me out a bit. I couldn’t get the car stopped at the hairpin and had a bit of an issue where I couldn’t get down the gears but, when the Safety Car went back in, I knew I had a good opportunity get the lead back and win.”
