Jamie Chadwick - First competitive female driver in F1?

Jamie Chadwick - First competitive female driver in F1?

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carl_w

9,594 posts

266 months

Monday 25th October 2021
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Joey Deacon said:
Am I right in thinking that Jamie Chadwick actually has the 40 points required to get a Super Licence?

"In 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, requirement 6 was amended where if the three-season window includes the year 2020, then the highest scoring three seasons out of the four previous seasons are to be counted. If a driver has accumulated at least 30 points and is currently competing in any of the Championships reported in Supplement 1 and has been unable to accumulate the 40 points due to "circumstances outside their control or reasons of force majeure", the license may be granted at the discretion of the FIA.[1][2]"

2019 W Series 1st = 15 Points
2019-2020 F3 Asian Championship 4th = 10 Points
2021 W Series 1st = 15 Points
I'm not sure the 2019 W series awarded superlicence points? But I understand that only 25 are needed for Friday practice outings, and next year it will be mandatory to run young drivers in them.

Sandpit Steve

11,472 posts

82 months

Monday 25th October 2021
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carl_w said:
Joey Deacon said:
Am I right in thinking that Jamie Chadwick actually has the 40 points required to get a Super Licence?

"In 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, requirement 6 was amended where if the three-season window includes the year 2020, then the highest scoring three seasons out of the four previous seasons are to be counted. If a driver has accumulated at least 30 points and is currently competing in any of the Championships reported in Supplement 1 and has been unable to accumulate the 40 points due to "circumstances outside their control or reasons of force majeure", the license may be granted at the discretion of the FIA.[1][2]"

2019 W Series 1st = 15 Points
2019-2020 F3 Asian Championship 4th = 10 Points
2021 W Series 1st = 15 Points
I'm not sure the 2019 W series awarded superlicence points? But I understand that only 25 are needed for Friday practice outings, and next year it will be mandatory to run young drivers in them.
Yes, there were no SL points for the 2019 WS, so Jamie has 25 now.
https://wseries.com/w-hub/2020-fia-super-licence-p...

HustleRussell

25,207 posts

168 months

Monday 25th October 2021
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rjfp1962 said:
Very impressed with Jamie Chadwick's drive yesterday in Austin, TX and in securing her 2nd W Series Championship title.
She has close links with the Williams team, so could she eventually become the first competitive female driver in F1?

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.jamie-c...
I watch W series, I am a supporter of the efforts being made to popularise motorsport among girls and women. I am avidly waiting for a female driver to successfully scale the ranks.

It is true that several Formula 1 drivers have leapt straight from regional Formula 3 to Formula 1, Lance Stroll being the latest example.

However, objectively speaking, Jamie Chadwick is not at the standard of those drivers. The W series car is not equivalent to a Formula 3 car, and the standard of W series competition is far from that in FIA F3. On the occasions that Chadwick has driven a Formula 3 car, she has not achieved the level of performance or success of now-Formula 1 drivers. She has achieved podiums in the Asian regional series and one podium in the unofficial European F3 series. Lance Stroll won the official European FIA F3 series. Nikita Mazepin came 10th in FIA F3 and 3rd in Asian but went a step further with 5th in FIA F2.

Jamie is not F1 ready by any stretch but she does need and deserve a solid footing in European Formula 3 with a good testing regime.

There is a discussion to be had about whether Formula 3 and especially Formula 2 will need to be equipped with power steering before female drivers can be reasonably expected to compete on level footing with male drivers. This is an area where male drivers have a physical advantage and I would expect this will place a barrier in the way of a hopefully increasing number of female drivers reaching this rung of the ladder to F1 unless rectified.

Edited by HustleRussell on Monday 25th October 12:46

TheDeuce

25,436 posts

74 months

Monday 25th October 2021
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End said:
TheDeuce said:
End said:
Whilst Deuce is slagging off Lella Lombardi's ability as a racer ,she had 2 half decent results at Le Mans 24 hours .

2nd in class in a Lancia Stratos Ferrari .
I said she's about average or less in F1... You counter that by saying she's had two half decent results in Le Mans scratchchin

Is a couple of half decent results not pretty average? I feel a male driver achieving the same would be labelled as such.
How many F1 titles did Tom Kristensen win ?

He's just rubbish driver .

I'm not going to argue with the resident F1 "expert" .
Why so aggressive? I asked a perfectly reasonable question in response to your 'slagging off' comment.

If think Lombardi was sensational as a female racer but ignoring her sex, as a racer overall, about average. Can you point to anything that suggests otherwise? (politely..)

TheDeuce

25,436 posts

74 months

Monday 25th October 2021
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RacerMike said:
...Jamie is easily quick enough to be good in an F1 car.
How can that be known at this point? She's excellent at the level she's at, and if you say you've seen her perform to a very high standard vs another driver that has achieved at higher levels since then I accept that... But not all drivers can go to the top, some hit the ceiling of their own performance potential ahead of others - sometimes a long way short of F1 standard.

It's quite possible for a driver to perform at a very high level in one series, but then find themselves outclassed as they progress - it could be they encounter physical limitations of their ability as races become more intense and longer, mental limitations as their brain has to process and calculate faster for longer..

You kind of have to be tested before you can ever really know - which is why I am keen to see her in FIA F3 next season, and go from there..

Bo_apex

3,053 posts

226 months

Monday 25th October 2021
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HustleRussell said:
I watch W series, I am a supporter of the efforts being made to popularise motorsport among girls and women. I am avidly waiting for a female driver to successfully scale the ranks.

It is true that several Formula 1 drivers have leapt straight from regional Formula 3 to Formula 1, Lance Stroll being the latest example.

However, objectively speaking, Jamie Chadwick is not at the standard of those drivers. The W series car is not equivalent to a Formula 3 car, and the standard of W series competition is far from that in FIA F3. On the occasions that Chadwick has driven a Formula 3 car, she has not achieved the level of performance or success of now-Formula 1 drivers. She has achieved podiums in the Asian regional series and one podium in the unofficial European F3 series. Lance Stroll won the official European FIA F3 series. Nikita Mazepin came 10th in FIA F3 and 3rd in Asian but went a step further with 5th in FIA F2.

Jamie is not F1 ready by any stretch but she does need and deserve a solid footing in European Formula 3 with a good testing regime.

There is a discussion to be had about whether Formula 3 and especially Formula 2 will need to be equipped with power steering before female drivers can be reasonably expected to compete on level footing with male drivers. This is an area where male drivers have a physical advantage and I would expect this will place a barrier in the way of a hopefully increasing number of female drivers reaching this rung of the ladder to F1 unless rectified.

Edited by HustleRussell on Monday 25th October 12:46
There's also a discussion as to F1 not having PAS, thereby making it a greater challenge.

HustleRussell

25,207 posts

168 months

Monday 25th October 2021
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Bo_apex said:
There's also a discussion as to F1 not having PAS, thereby making it a greater challenge.
F1 has had PAS for a very long time and I hope there isn't any discussion in the direction of removing it. I cannot imagine how heavy the steering would be without PAS in the current formula but it'd be ludicrous.

If you want a competition based chiefly upon physical strength, there are a lot of sports you can use which correctly feature divisions for Male and Female competitors.

I want to know who the best drivers are. .

TheDeuce

25,436 posts

74 months

Monday 25th October 2021
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Bo_apex said:
There's also a discussion as to F1 not having PAS, thereby making it a greater challenge.
They would need skinnier section front tyres and vastly reduced car weights to make that practical - on many a level it would be a step back in both performance and safety. The latter being the reason I can't see it happening.

Even the lightest road cars these days are too heavy due to mandated safety tech and measures to be practical without PAS.



anonymous-user

62 months

Monday 25th October 2021
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Sandpit Steve said:
Yes, there were no SL points for the 2019 WS, so Jamie has 25 now.
https://wseries.com/w-hub/2020-fia-super-licence-p...
Moot point then as she will never get a super licence unless she gets the additional 15 points. This is the issue, for all the moans of equality, sexism and women only formulas, the inconvenient truth is they still need 40 points to get a super licence.

Lets be honest, if a female was good enough to compete in F1 she would have teams falling over themselves to sign her. There are literally no barriers to a woman being in F1, other than being good enough.

Ultimately for a woman to get into F1 she is going to have to follow the exact same path as everyone else and that is to win in lower formula such as F2 and F3 and compete with men.

Ring fencing female racers in their own formula and still expecting them to be able to face in F1 is a joke as it is essentially admitting they cannot compete in F2 and F3. If this is the case then they have zero hope of competing in F1 (or even getting the necessary 40 points)

I am sure we could sit here and name 50 male drivers who never quite made it to F1 who would be faster than Jamie.

MustangGT

12,350 posts

288 months

Monday 25th October 2021
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Jamie needs a couple of seasons in F2 to get closer to the speed of F1. The W cars are essentially F3 so 'slow'. Look at the pole times at Austin. Jamie 2:05. Max 1:33. That is a massive difference.

Sandpit Steve

11,472 posts

82 months

Monday 25th October 2021
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Bo_apex said:
There's also a discussion as to F1 not having PAS, thereby making it a greater challenge.
F1 does have PAS. F2 doesn’t.

There was a comment from Tatiana Calderon, last woman to drive in F2, that it was a very physically demanding car to drive - more so than either the F3 car or an F1 car. It’s something worth looking at from the point of view of the FIA.

https://www.esquireme.com/sports/sports-news/42505...

carl_w

9,594 posts

266 months

Monday 25th October 2021
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Joey Deacon said:
Lets be honest, if a female was good enough to compete in F1 she would have teams falling over themselves to sign her. There are literally no barriers to a woman being in F1, other than being good enough.
If that's the case, why aren't there any women F1 drivers?

Sandpit Steve

11,472 posts

82 months

Monday 25th October 2021
quotequote all
carl_w said:
Joey Deacon said:
Lets be honest, if a female was good enough to compete in F1 she would have teams falling over themselves to sign her. There are literally no barriers to a woman being in F1, other than being good enough.
If that's the case, why aren't there any women F1 drivers?
Because no women have 40 super licence points.

As soon as one does, they’ll be snapped up by a team for the marketing angle. F1 wants to find the next Danica Patrick.

Bo_apex

3,053 posts

226 months

Monday 25th October 2021
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TheDeuce said:
Bo_apex said:
There's also a discussion as to F1 not having PAS, thereby making it a greater challenge.
They would need skinnier section front tyres and vastly reduced car weights to make that practical - on many a level it would be a step back in both performance and safety. The latter being the reason I can't see it happening.

Even the lightest road cars these days are too heavy due to mandated safety tech and measures to be practical without PAS.
New regs and the shakeout from next year's cars may justify removal of PAS.

The minimal input required on today's steering wheel is remarkably small. X-Box !


TheDeuce

25,436 posts

74 months

Monday 25th October 2021
quotequote all
Joey Deacon said:
Sandpit Steve said:
Yes, there were no SL points for the 2019 WS, so Jamie has 25 now.
https://wseries.com/w-hub/2020-fia-super-licence-p...
Moot point then as she will never get a super licence unless she gets the additional 15 points. This is the issue, for all the moans of equality, sexism and women only formulas, the inconvenient truth is they still need 40 points to get a super licence.

Lets be honest, if a female was good enough to compete in F1 she would have teams falling over themselves to sign her. There are literally no barriers to a woman being in F1, other than being good enough.

Ultimately for a woman to get into F1 she is going to have to follow the exact same path as everyone else and that is to win in lower formula such as F2 and F3 and compete with men.

Ring fencing female racers in their own formula and still expecting them to be able to face in F1 is a joke as it is essentially admitting they cannot compete in F2 and F3. If this is the case then they have zero hope of competing in F1 (or even getting the necessary 40 points)

I am sure we could sit here and name 50 male drivers who never quite made it to F1 who would be faster than Jamie.
She'd get the required points if she just finished F3 in third... Which granted wouldn't normally line someone up for an F1 drive straight away, but as said, getting a woman driver in a team would be commercially quite attractive, even if the performance alone doesn't justify the seat.. Or of course, Jamie could go to F3, shine and then continue to shine in F2 and more than deserve it on top of having followed the traditional path, we just don't know until she tries.

TheDeuce

25,436 posts

74 months

Monday 25th October 2021
quotequote all
Bo_apex said:
TheDeuce said:
Bo_apex said:
There's also a discussion as to F1 not having PAS, thereby making it a greater challenge.
They would need skinnier section front tyres and vastly reduced car weights to make that practical - on many a level it would be a step back in both performance and safety. The latter being the reason I can't see it happening.

Even the lightest road cars these days are too heavy due to mandated safety tech and measures to be practical without PAS.
New regs and the shakeout from next year's cars may justify removal of PAS.

The minimal input required on today's steering wheel is remarkably small. X-Box !
Not saying they shouldn't reduce the assistance, but losing PAS altogether on such large cars?

If you quickly need to turn the wheels at slow speed or whilst reversing... you're going to struggle with PAS. Or spin turns, where you need to make and then correct a steering input very quickly whilst the fronts are hardly rotating at all. Anyone who can do that in such a heavy car with no PAS will have arms so huge they'll struggle to fit in the cockpit biggrin

Peacockantony

267 posts

167 months

Monday 25th October 2021
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rjfp1962 said:
Very impressed with Jamie Chadwick's drive yesterday in Austin, TX and in securing her 2nd W Series Championship title.
She has close links with the Williams team, so could she eventually become the first competitive female driver in F1?

https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.jamie-c...


Edited by rjfp1962 on Monday 25th October 10:55
Not a chance, she is nowhere near good enough to get to F1. She has peaked at Formula Regional level and will progress no further. She had been shown to be a poor to average driver at that level with success only really coming in W Series, a very weak championship that really should be F4 level.

Peacockantony

267 posts

167 months

Monday 25th October 2021
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HustleRussell said:
It is true that several Formula 1 drivers have leapt straight from regional Formula 3 to Formula 1, Lance Stroll being the latest example.
Stroll isn't exactly the norm though is he! He jumped into F1 with Williams because Lawrence Stroll bunged Williams a substantial amount of money, not because he earned it. His performances in F3* at the time were at least good enough to justify him going into GP2* so it isn't as if his he was undeserving though.

  • Or whatever the bleeding series were called at the time, I'm glad they simplified it. GPx Fx, you know what I mean.
Joey Deacon said:
Moot point then as she will never get a super licence unless she gets the additional 15 points. This is the issue, for all the moans of equality, sexism and women only formulas, the inconvenient truth is they still need 40 points to get a super licence.
To even be considered as an option for a race seat in F1 she would really need to compete in F3 & most likely F2 also in order to gain the much needed experience of higher level formula cars so there would be plenty of opportunity to gain the extra points required, if she was good enough to suceed in them anyway. Which if she wasn't then points are irrelevant because without ability she isn't getting a drive.

Joey Deacon said:
Lets be honest, if a female was good enough to compete in F1 she would have teams falling over themselves to sign her. There are literally no barriers to a woman being in F1, other than being good enough.
Without a doubt, just look at how much virtue signalling they've all being doing since 2020...

Let's face it, female drivers are already given greater opportunities than their male counterparts, male drivers of Calderon's and Chadwick's level would long since have been cast aside for the much more capable and faster drivers that are in an an abundance. Many talents have been spat out of the ladder before they were able to shine. Even at F1 level Red Bull has squandered many drivers because of their harsh approach. Most of the W Series entrants are drivers that don't really deserve a Formula Regional drive and in reality are F4 level but have one simply because they are women.

Joey Deacon said:
Ultimately for a woman to get into F1 she is going to have to follow the exact same path as everyone else and that is to win in lower formula such as F2 and F3 and compete with men.
Precisely, cutting corners and judging women racers by lower standards just to allow progress up the ranks will only end in failure, because you're only progressing a driver who ultimately is not at the same level as those she's competing with and wouldn't be able to beat them.

This is the problem W Series has currently compared to other regional F3 championships such as Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine, the latter is by far a higher quality championship with better drivers despite supposedly being the same level, but W Series is erroneously seen as the higher championship, with many believing it is on par with FIA F3 or even F2 also.
Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine will also have had more races in 2021 alone than W Series has held since it's creation.

Peacockantony

267 posts

167 months

Monday 25th October 2021
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MustangGT said:
Jamie needs a couple of seasons in F2 to get closer to the speed of F1. The W cars are essentially F3 so 'slow'. Look at the pole times at Austin. Jamie 2:05. Max 1:33. That is a massive difference.
She really needs a couple of seasons in FIA F3, F2 would be far too high. She would realistically struggle in F3 based on her results in competetive series lower down on the ladder.

carl_w said:
f that's the case, why aren't there any women F1 drivers?
Because none of those who have tried have been good enough to make it to F1. The problem is that the best female racers are usually average compared to the peers around them at the time they're competing. Their better performing peers climbs the ranks and as average drivers usually do, they stagnate and hang around at the same level for a while before fading in obscurity.

For all of the hype Chadwick gets, she isn't the highest ranking female driver. Calderon and Floersch are closest to reaching F1 for some time but are unlikely to be good enough. Abbi Pulling seems to have a greater chance at suceeding than them, hopefully she can get a budget together to escape W Series before it harms her chances of rising further.


C70R

17,596 posts

112 months

Monday 25th October 2021
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Joey Deacon said:
Interestingly enough, Mazepin raced in the 2019-2020 F3 Asian Championship and finished 3rd with 186 points to Jamie's 139 points.
I'm a big fan of Jamie's, but this probably tells us enough on its own.

She's not got the talent to get into a top car on merit alone (only 8 drivers competed in all races of that F3 season), and we've all seen the result of dropping an average F3 driver into a poor F1 car.

I'd be shocked if F1 would allow its first female driver to end up stuck at the back of the grid every weekend. Imagine the damage it could do.