Jamie Chadwick - First competitive female driver in F1?

[TheDeuce]

Thundersports said:

RacerMike said:

Stunning financial decision from Jamie. £1.5m in 3 years! Wish I could go and race cars and make even a tenth of that. Think she bought her house in London with the first prize, and I guess the remaining £1m will do well in investments!

Clearly didn't want to spend that money on a GP3 drive then!

That's actually a good point. If you're serious about a motorsport career and reaching ever higher you kind of need to money to hand, not tied up in a house when you could be renting. Lauda and Lewis (his dad to be fair) put everything into the journey - but in both instances they were totally committed, they had no plan B or 'what ifs'. To achieve success in such a tightly contested sport you have to expect it and align your life and resources to it, being somewhat detached from the notion it might not happen.

Obviously the house is a safer bet and all the money could be lost if it goes to the career which then fails... But does a fully committed racer plan for failure? Kind of like betting against yourself.

[LukeBrown66]

Maybe she simply knows she is not good enough, I think that is very wise, she has an entire career before here and these morons gave her vast sums for winning a pointless series, it's probably why she stayed there as it was easy, very easy pickings, she is young and can now pursue a career in motorsport at this level for years,it's a nest egg and a very good one.

More fool the people allowing her to come back and win the same again, it's not her fault, just shows how badly the whole thing as run and set up.

[Peacockantony]

carl_w said:

It's $1.5m. Can't imagine anyone buying a house in London with $500k.

Mummy & daddy Chadwick likely paid for Jamie's London pad. The fact that anyone classes her as a driver that lacks opportunities because of funding is a joke, her $1m winning froms W Series for 14 races will be in the bank alongside all of the money her parents gifted to her.

The propaganda machine worked so hard creating the narrative that Chadwick can't afford to go racing that it almost burned down from overuse.

The Chadwick's (Jamie & Ollie) are no Hamilton, Ocon or Albon, they aren't kids who's working class parents had to make sacrifices to give them their dream. ffs Ollie had a pilot's licence to fly a helicopter before he was old enough to drive a car on the road.

While Ollie gave up racing, Jamie used her supposed victimhood status to game the system and earn easy money. She has earned £1m at least by pretending to be a good driver in W Series without actually have to work hard like every other driver in every other series does. She doesn't have to pay to enter like every driver elsewhere does yet gets a bigger payout for doing less races than even higher ranked drivers do. $500k for 8 races against the world's worst drivers? Easy money.

mat205125 said:

Nicely worded, and I agree completely.

Diversity and inclusion by deliberate separation and exclusive focus on specific groups isn't the best way forward.

Exclusive focus on specific groups is exactly how D&I work. It exclusively focuses on a specific group deemed to be victims defined by extremist ideology then seeks to separate them for preferential treatment.

[RacerMike]

Or maybe she knows (actually she does as she told me this in person) that ‘once a pay driver, always a pay driver’.

It’s a shrewd decision to choose not to pay your way into motorsport. No true pro is ever the one who actually pays. Sure, you can bring money in the form of sponsorship, but actually handing over cash from either personal or family wealth is a terrible idea for many many reasons, not least of all that you get a reputation for it. And it’s one you’ll never shake. Teams will always expect that you’ll pay at least something.

Of course I’m never going to be objective about Jamie. I raced against her in BGT, know her to speak to and have two friends who have known her for years as well. She has every chance to be a big headed and arrogant person, but she really isn’t and even when she was 17 she had a wise head on her shoulders. As much as a few people on here are clearly keen to write her off (perhaps with a touch of mansplaining thrown in for good measure), I think she’s certainly got the brain cells to make a better go of things than a good number of people out there. As much as I hate to say it, speed isn’t absolutely everything in motorsport….

Edited by RacerMike on Wednesday 12th October 00:20

[TheDeuce]

Interesting. So the Jamie Chadwick thread conclusion is that as easily the best driver in W series she actually doesn't really prioritise her racing, which its hard to argue with if she's winning millions and isn't pouring that money into a better drive.

She's won three times, if that's the calibre of driver required to dominate W series it doesn't say much for the series.

And the series itself ran out of money before the end of the season.

It's not great is it?

[TheDeuce]

jsf said:

RacerMike said:

Or maybe she knows (actually she does as she told me this in person) that ‘once a pay driver, always a pay driver’.

It’s a shrewd decision to choose not to pay your way into motorsport. No true pro is ever the one who actually pays. Sure, you can bring money in the form of sponsorship, but actually handing over cash from either personal or family wealth is a terrible idea for many many reasons, not least of all that you get a reputation for it. And it’s one you’ll never shake. Teams will always expect that you’ll pay at least something.

Didn't seem to harm Revlon heir Mike Revson or Lando Norris.

Most drivers who make it need a lot of money to burn before they get paid. This seems to be even more the case now with you needing to fund acceptable to the superlicence points series, which cost a fortune.

Even Michael Schumacher wouldn't have got where he was without the investment of Willie Webber, his dad owning a kart teack didn’t hinder him either.

That's true but is Jamie burning money? Or holding steady and earning money?

If the latter, that's a terrible reflection on the series that someone with money was able to get good enough to turn up and take a lot more money back out whilst consistently beating the rest of the field.

In F1 terms it would be like latifi beating everyone year after year. I think if that were the case, we'd lose interest.

[Peacockantony]

RacerMike said:

Or maybe she knows (actually she does as she told me this in person) that ‘once a pay driver, always a pay driver’.

It’s a shrewd decision to choose not to pay your way into motorsport. No true pro is ever the one who actually pays. Sure, you can bring money in the form of sponsorship, but actually handing over cash from either personal or family wealth is a terrible idea for many many reasons, not least of all that you get a reputation for it. And it’s one you’ll never shake. Teams will always expect that you’ll pay at least something.

Of course I’m never going to be objective about Jamie. I raced against her in BGT, know her to speak to and have two friends who have known her for years as well. She has every chance to be a big headed and arrogant person, but she really isn’t and even when she was 17 she had a wise head on her shoulders. As much as a few people on here are clearly keen to write her off (perhaps with a touch of mansplaining thrown in for good measure), I think she’s certainly got the brain cells to make a better go of things than a good number of people out there. As much as I hate to say it, speed isn’t absolutely everything in motorsport….

Edited by RacerMike on Wednesday 12th October 00:20

She is and always will be a pay driver. Every driver is to one extent or another. Unless you contribute 0 to a drive (discounting W Series here) either in the form of personal contribution or sponsor backing you are a pay driver.

BTW, what is your take on her brother Ollie? Your use of the term 'mansplaining' says it all, you are hardly objective or able to speak without bias...
Usage of such terms point to believing in an extreme sexist ideology.

Personal relationships usually tend to cloud judgement, even only brief ones.

[AlexRS2782]

Ah, whenever this thread (or one of the others) gets bumped you can always guarantee the return of Peacock aka Sid The Sexist as someone referred to him on another thread a few months back

I think someone asked you on the other thread what either Jamie, or any female driver, did to you at some point in your life given your posting history related to purely to Jamie, W-Series and women drivers in sport in general and your evident hatred / negativity / disgust of everything & anything associated with it Literally the last 2 years every single post, apart from 2 related to bad parking & the BTCC on other threads, has been you wittering on and ranting on this and the W-Series thread

Edit - nope i got that wrong, you also managed to get a few posts in on the Naomi Schiff thread too with a similar level of ranting claiming Naomi was only being employed by Sky because they needed to tick boxes due to some "woke" agenda, because she's black and that some people might find her attractive / easy on the eye in front of the camera. At which point you then told another poster that they held racist & sexist views because they defended her appointment and said they enjoyed her addition to the coverage compared to some of the other pundits employed by Sky

Oh and there we are again this time telling a poster above that they're not objective on this subject because they know Jamie and suggesting they believe in an extreme sexist ideology - Peak PH has now been reached

[anonymous-user]

Thundersports said:

Clearly didn't want to spend that money on a GP3 drive then!

Exactly, she ended up with $1.5, as you say if she was that convinced in her own abilities and talent she would have paid for a GP3 drive. She did race in the 2019–20 F3 Asian Championship and finished 4th behind Nikita Mazepin......

LukeBrown66 said:

Maybe she simply knows she is not good enough, I think that is very wise, she has an entire career before here and these morons gave her vast sums for winning a pointless series, it's probably why she stayed there as it was easy, very easy pickings, she is young and can now pursue a career in motorsport at this level for years,it's a nest egg and a very good one.

More fool the people allowing her to come back and win the same again, it's not her fault, just shows how badly the whole thing as run and set up.

Totally agree, she has been able to race for free and walked away with $1.5 million as well. I am sure she has bought a nice house with that money and is pretty much set for life now. I am sure she can do a bit of racing, do a bit of media, hang around the periphery of F1 for a while etc. and have a pretty good time knowing she doesn't have the talent to go any further than she already has.

It's pretty clear there is no way this series is ever going to be back, especially with the current world financial situation.

[Thundersports]

Nigel Mansell REALLY wanted F1 he did the opposite and sold his house to fund his racing.

[TheDeuce]

Thundersports said:

Nigel Mansell REALLY wanted F1 he did the opposite and sold his house to fund his racing.

I remember wanting to be Nigel Mansell at primary school, running around like a buffoon making F1 engine noises

I didn't know very much about F1 at that time other than he was our British driver and was very good, and that he was by that point very wealthy and in 1992, in my final year at that school, he went and won at a British team! Of course we all wanted to believe at that point in our lives that we could some day get a job driving the fastest cars on the planet and get rich doing it!

I can therefore relate to how a high achieving sportsperson can inspire young people and some of those, if they're inspired early on enough will be asking their Dad to take them karting and for a tiny % of those inspired kids, it's the start of some sort of motorsport career.

This is in theory what W series is supposed to do, inspire more girls to get into karts early on. But the problem is that I really doubt if Nige had been racing at a relatively obscure series in quite a slow car, behind a paywall, and then when he won he got only enough money to buy a fairly average house, I would have been as inspired. In fact I probably would never have heard of him.

I think W series actually works against it's own goal of inspiring girls because it isn't particularly inspirational as a life pursuit.

[RacerMike]

Thundersports said:

Nigel Mansell REALLY wanted F1 he did the opposite and sold his house to fund his racing.

Reality is that wouldn't get you even near F1 these days. A season in F2 is around 3m Euro's these days. The thing is now, you mark yourself out now by not being a pay driver. Teams definitely take you more seriously if you're bringing backing rather than your own wealth. You're also basically paying 40% more for your racing too if you're paying with private cash as there's no way of writing the tax off.

[TheDeuce]

RacerMike said:

Thundersports said:

Nigel Mansell REALLY wanted F1 he did the opposite and sold his house to fund his racing.

Reality is that wouldn't get you even near F1 these days. A season in F2 is around 3m Euro's these days. The thing is now, you mark yourself out now by not being a pay driver. Teams definitely take you more seriously if you're bringing backing rather than your own wealth. You're also basically paying 40% more for your racing too if you're paying with private cash as there's no way of writing the tax off.

I think the point was about the drive and attitude to make something happen, not the specific example of how Nigel did it all that time ago.

[StevieBee]

RacerMike said:

Reality is that wouldn't get you even near F1 these days. A season in F2 is around 3m Euro's these days.

It's changing, though.

A combination of the cost-cap and increased revenues is meaning the F1 teams are - or are close to being - viable and profitable businesses. This will lessen, possibly even remove the need for drivers to bring budget allowing teams to invest more in grass roots and junior levels in order that they can bring in talent rather than a thick wallet.

RacerMike said:

[You're also basically paying 40% more for your racing too if you're paying with private cash as there's no way of writing the tax off.

This assumes the fathers or drivers paying are themselves paying tax in the first place somewhere! ;-)

[RB Will]

TheDeuce said:

I remember wanting to be Nigel Mansell at primary school, running around like a buffoon making F1 engine noises

I didn't know very much about F1 at that time other than he was our British driver and was very good, and that he was by that point very wealthy and in 1992, in my final year at that school, he went and won at a British team! Of course we all wanted to believe at that point in our lives that we could some day get a job driving the fastest cars on the planet and get rich doing it!

I can therefore relate to how a high achieving sportsperson can inspire young people and some of those, if they're inspired early on enough will be asking their Dad to take them karting and for a tiny % of those inspired kids, it's the start of some sort of motorsport career.

This is in theory what W series is supposed to do, inspire more girls to get into karts early on. But the problem is that I really doubt if Nige had been racing at a relatively obscure series in quite a slow car, behind a paywall, and then when he won he got only enough money to buy a fairly average house, I would have been as inspired. In fact I probably would never have heard of him.

I think W series actually works against it's own goal of inspiring girls because it isn't particularly inspirational as a life pursuit.

We could be overthinking it a bit, we are boring old men and over analyse stuff, at which point it doesn’t make sense.
It may only need a message as simple as, look girls go vroom in pointy cars too, to get an 8 year old girl interested.

[StevieBee]

RB Will said:

TheDeuce said:

I remember wanting to be Nigel Mansell at primary school, running around like a buffoon making F1 engine noises

I didn't know very much about F1 at that time other than he was our British driver and was very good, and that he was by that point very wealthy and in 1992, in my final year at that school, he went and won at a British team! Of course we all wanted to believe at that point in our lives that we could some day get a job driving the fastest cars on the planet and get rich doing it!

I can therefore relate to how a high achieving sportsperson can inspire young people and some of those, if they're inspired early on enough will be asking their Dad to take them karting and for a tiny % of those inspired kids, it's the start of some sort of motorsport career.

This is in theory what W series is supposed to do, inspire more girls to get into karts early on. But the problem is that I really doubt if Nige had been racing at a relatively obscure series in quite a slow car, behind a paywall, and then when he won he got only enough money to buy a fairly average house, I would have been as inspired. In fact I probably would never have heard of him.

I think W series actually works against it's own goal of inspiring girls because it isn't particularly inspirational as a life pursuit.

We could be overthinking it a bit, we are boring old men and over analyse stuff, at which point it doesn’t make sense.
It may only need a message as simple as, look girls go vroom in pointy cars too, to get an 8 year old girl interested.

Or it could be as simple as being something that doesn't particularly appeal to girls.

Providing there's nothing stopping those who are, giving it a go (and I see no evidence of this ever being the case), then why force the issue?

[TheDeuce]

RB Will said:

We could be overthinking it a bit, we are boring old men and over analyse stuff, at which point it doesn’t make sense.
It may only need a message as simple as, look girls go vroom in pointy cars too, to get an 8 year old girl interested.

I think the difference is that Nigel was acheiving global fame and all the boys at school new who he was so we built him up into a huge deal - I suspect many had never even watched him race but knew he was popular so joined in.

I don't think women in Motorsport are going to build that sort of hype and excitement until a few start to break meaningful records in some way. Most girls simply aren't going to watch W series in the first place.. But if one of the drivers managed to make it into F2 and become the most successful female in the series to date, a lot of mums and dads would catch wind if that and start to point out what she is acheiving to their daughters.

W series itself just isn't a big enough challenge and winning it doesn't get you into the mainstream consciousness, not in a way that will reach a kid.

[TheDeuce]

StevieBee said:

Or it could be as simple as being something that doesn't particularly appeal to girls.

Providing there's nothing stopping those who are, giving it a go (and I see no evidence of this ever being the case), then why force the issue?

It's never been the case, you can go back to the dawn of Motorsport and women have been able to enter. It's actually harder today because of the super license but women are in no way held back from attaining one.

[TheDeuce]

jsf said:

TheDeuce said:

I remember wanting to be Nigel Mansell at primary school, running around like a buffoon making F1 engine noises

I didn't know very much about F1 at that time other than he was our British driver and was very good, and that he was by that point very wealthy and in 1992, in my final year at that school, he went and won at a British team! Of course we all wanted to believe at that point in our lives that we could some day get a job driving the fastest cars on the planet and get rich doing it!

You just made me feel old, i was living in Atlanta in the USA just as our Nige had left F1 and was having a go at Indycar. I had enormous fun taking the piss out of my American friends as Nige kicked their arses. Feels like yesterday, my mates daughter i used to babysit as a todler whilst there turned 30 the other day. Time flies.

[LukeBrown66]

Apparently the series is not actually dead, it is basically over for this season as an investor just pulled out meaning presumably backing or payments for whatever was left were not forthcoming, so it is clearly run as a tight ship with no vast wealth in the kitty.

It is a tough problem women in racing, and the perceived lack of achievement. In my eyes a lass nearly winning the WRC in the 80's (and let's not start the she was in the best car stuff, do your research of that year), a woman won an Indy-car race, several women have raced in F1 and done OK in crap cars, as have quite a few in GT and WEC type racing and done perfectly well, as good as men, and at club level there are scores of women, competing, winning races, getting podiums.

I would say in the overall scheme of things when you consider how vastly many more men are interested in this stuff than women, that is not bad going.

An average female driver can and will attract far more media exposure than a similarly average man, which means they can often go further in their sport, there is no limit at all in terms of fitness to what a woman can achieve in racing, at ANY level. In fact I would submit that should a woman ever get to the top level she will be super fit, elite athlete level and driven to the point of a Schumacher or Senna, that is what it will take for a woman to push on and get to that level.