Jamie Chadwick - First competitive female driver in F1?

[JonChalk]

Tazar said:

No doubting her ability in W Series but where afterwards?
It’s a question that’s been asked for years, do you want to have a good career being a racing driver in various National Series, Historics and celebrity events or strive unrealistically for F1 ?

Sportscars and GT racing would seem the obvious choices, possibly even IndyCar.

She's a way better driver than Esmee Hawkey who, sadly, is mostly trailing the back of the DTM field.
She's probably a better driver than Sophia Floersch who is doing pretty well in ELMS LMP2.
She's definitely better than Tatiana Calderon who is floating around the back of the IndyCar grid (though did ok in the wet race last week to be fair).

If they can get drives in these series, then Chadwick should be able to get quality drives in those series.

[Tazar]

But she needs to make those moves sooner rather than later before the criticism gets to her.

[Yazza54]

ch37 said:

3 out of 3 (and 5 in a row including the end of last season)

Big fish (relatively) in small pond.

Until she does the same on a unisex grid, no one's gonna take note.

[FourWheelDrift]

Yazza54 said:

Big fish (relatively) in small pond.

Until she does the same on a unisex grid, no one's gonna take note.

Unisex grid - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018%E2%80%9319_MRF_...

See the results at the India round against Jack Doohan, he's racing in F2 this year.

[Koln-RS]

…and, as mentioned on a previous page, Asian F3


She’s also a very good GT and Endurance driver, having co-won several titles. I even saw her racing in the Spa 6Hr Classic a couple of years ago, in a lwt E-Type. I was with a group, inc Marcus Pye, and we were all amazed how she threw it around in heavy traffic and changing weather for hours on end.

Edited by Koln-RS on Saturday 21st May 22:25

[Yazza54]

I'm not suggesting she can't, I am saying she is flourishing in the wrong company. It doesn't prove anything. I can only imagine she's doing it for the prize money at this point.

[Koln-RS]

It was 2019 - just googled the results.
She was the pro-driver and finished 11th overall from 100 starters, and 2nd E-Type home, which I thought was a good showing.
Obviously has no bearing on F1, but it would be wrong to suggest she’s a one series star, she seems to have done quite a lot of stuff.

[coppice]

Tazar said:

But she needs to make those moves sooner rather than later before the criticism gets to her.

I suspect most of the criticism is on here -

- 'she's not good enough '

- 'women aren't good enough '

- 'women get better breaks than men and it's so unfair'

- 'she's arrogant '

- ' W series isn't as fast as other series'

And so on , ad nauseam .

I wish her all the best .

[LukeBrown66]

The big issue is that I presume she cannot attract the backing to stay in single seaters or secure a drive that gives her the time to improve, I know she has had tests etc, and done a few seasons years back she won a race too I think.

But it seems she is either not good enough to move up or is determined to stay in this series and try and move up, she is winning routinely which is good, but it is very clear team bosses take no interest.

Now if she could bring money a la Calderon she would get somewhere, but maybe she cannot manage that.

Obviously she is good enough for GT, prototype racing or even America, but at the moment she is trying to land that dream seat, I wonder who manages her, can they not get enough money together to allow her to move up? or should they, as many have suggested stop trying this path, move away and secure her a drive in GT or prototype racing, where I am sure she would be fine.

This obsession with single seaters is dumb, she would get just as much notoriety from winning Le Mans or something, it is the biggest race in the world ffs!

[thegreenhell]

jsf said:

Koln-RS said:

I even saw her racing in the Spa 6Hr Classic a couple of years ago, in a lwt E-Type. I was with a group, inc Marcus Pye, and we were all amazed how she threw it around in heavy traffic and changing weather for hours on end.

She was 5.5s a lap slower than the fastest E-Type. (assuming she was the fastest of the pair in that car)

Fair play to her for having a go in the event, it's quite a challenge, especially for someone as young as she was, but she didn't show enough pace to make her look like an up and coming top pro. By comparison some of the young drivers in that event have ended up as F1 drivers, works WEC drivers and WEC world champions, they were ballistic, you could see the talent shine.

Spa 6 hours is a great event full of some of the best historic racers, she didn't stand out against those, she was no where near a pro in that type of car.

Not all E-Types are the same, as you well know. Even at Goodwood you can have a grid of ostensibly similar cars with pro and ex-pro drivers being several seconds apart on pace due to small differences in the level of preparation and setup. I don't think it's fair to criticise her performance in that race unless she was 5.5 seconds slower than her teammate in the same car, because unless you were working in that team that weekend we simply have no way of knowing how much of that 5.5 seconds was down to her and how much was the car.

[Tazar]

An invited driver, as many of us know, receives instructions from the owner or team manager on how to drive a particular car. That can change from race to race depending on the state of the car and the experience of the driver in a particular race.
Sometimes a driver doesn’t give a shine out performance depending on the instructions received. If told, go for it, then sometimes an amazing drive is given. Sometimes the instructions are it’s not running properly at the top end or just bring it home safely. If the owner or team manager says she was rubbish in our car then maybe she was. Until then maybe the benefit of the doubt may be given.

Edited by Tazar on Sunday 22 May 21:01

[Koln-RS]

The reason I recall this event well is because I was there with the son of a friend, who engineered for one of the teams, and he knew Chadwick and pointed her out.

She had just won her first WS title and there was quite a bit of interest in her jumping into an historic for the first time. I thought she did a good job, qualifying 24th and finishing 11th. Car was owned by a wealthy Russian (?) woman, but Chadwick did most of the driving.

I saw Marcus Pye there, and in his review he wrote this in Autosport.

Edited by Koln-RS on Sunday 22 May 22:37

[rjfp1962]

Caught part of an interview Jamie did on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning - Her ambition is to become a Formula 1 driver in 3 years time.

[Krikkit]

rjfp1962 said:

Caught part of an interview Jamie did on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning - Her ambition is to become a Formula 1 driver in 3 years time.

Good luck to her and fingers crossed - I can't understand why someone hasn't stumped up the sponsorship money to get her into a competitive F2 seat yet and see whether she can cut the mustard. The exposure would be huge.

[Cold]

Short article in the Guardian where she discusses the physical practicalities of a female driver in F1.
Issues such as steering wheel rim thickness, pedal placement and even the width of the cockpit are mentioned. She doesn't list them as being excuses for a potential lack of performance but suggests they should be studied to see if they do make a difference.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jun/29/jami...

[cuprabob]

rjfp1962 said:

Caught part of an interview Jamie did on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning - Her ambition is to become a Formula 1 driver in 3 years time.

She was also on GMB this morning along with Caitlin Jenner. In that interview she said F1 was her goal but never defined a timescale.

[PhilAsia]

cuprabob said:

She was also on GMB this morning along with Caitlin Jenner. In that interview she said F1 was her goal but never defined a timescale.

Is she Buddhist?

[boyse7en]

jsf said:

Cold said:

Short article in the Guardian where she discusses the physical practicalities of a female driver in F1.
Issues such as steering wheel rim thickness, pedal placement and even the width of the cockpit are mentioned. She doesn't list them as being excuses for a potential lack of performance but suggests they should be studied to see if they do make a difference.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jun/29/jami...

All of that is bespoke to the driver. Ridiculous list.

She hasn't done anything to suggest she is F1 level talent.

Is it? Only she says that F3 and F2 have a standard steering wheel,

And at that level i doubt a team would be keen on making a bespoke wider cockpit. Not even sure that in F1 the cockpits are sized to the driver - its easier to make the driver lose weight to fit in than make the tub wider

[mat205125]

boyse7en said:

jsf said:

Cold said:

Short article in the Guardian where she discusses the physical practicalities of a female driver in F1.
Issues such as steering wheel rim thickness, pedal placement and even the width of the cockpit are mentioned. She doesn't list them as being excuses for a potential lack of performance but suggests they should be studied to see if they do make a difference.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jun/29/jami...

All of that is bespoke to the driver. Ridiculous list.

She hasn't done anything to suggest she is F1 level talent.

Is it? Only she says that F3 and F2 have a standard steering wheel,

And at that level i doubt a team would be keen on making a bespoke wider cockpit. Not even sure that in F1 the cockpits are sized to the driver - its easier to make the driver lose weight to fit in than make the tub wider

I get the gender related observations, that on average female hands are smaller than males, however its worth remembering that tend to rise to the top of F1 are rarely average sized human males.

Having Russell, Ocon and Albon flirting with the six foot mark is very unusual in an F1 grid.

Tsunoda is the stand out munchkin of the current grid, with Norris barely past the five and a half foot tall.

Mercedes, Aston Martin, McLaren and Alpha Tauri all have drivers at different ends of the scale this year.

[anonymous-user]

Krikkit said:

Good luck to her and fingers crossed - I can't understand why someone hasn't stumped up the sponsorship money to get her into a competitive F2 seat yet and see whether she can cut the mustard. The exposure would be huge.

Because the inconvenient truth is she isn't good enough. She says she wants to be in formula 1, but she needs enough points to get a superlicence. Unfortunately the only way to do this is to do well in F2 or F3 and that means racing and beating male racers.

She has won 1 million dollars winning two seasons of Formula W and looks set to win another 500k this year. If she believed in herself that much she would use that money to fund a season of F2.

But she doesn't, she sticks to purely racing women in formula W and goes on about how she wants to he in F1 but doesn't want to race in F2 and F3 like every other F1 driver did.

Bizarrre, even if it all magically happened somehow she would get found out very quickly.