04/12/2019
NEWS STORY
Jamie Chadwick, winner of the inaugural W Series championship, is to contest the Asian F3 series this winter.
The 21-year old will race for Absolute Racing in a series which qualifies for the all-important Super Licence points required for F1.
"2019 has been a phenomenal year," said Chadwick, who was also a development driver for Williams this year, "and I'm delighted to be adding the Asian F3 series to the agenda.
"It's important for me to use this series as part of my testing and development programme to ensure I'm race-fit for whatever 2020 throws at me," she added. "I expect it to be very competitive as there are some top-level drivers and teams entered, so there will be a lot of hard work involved - but that's why it will be of such value."
The announcement comes days after Chadwick, along with runner-up, Beitske Visser and third-placed, Alice Powell gathered to celebrate W Series successful debut season, and present prizes to the 20 drivers.
Chadwick received a cheque for $500,000, while Visser collected $250,000, and Powell received $125,000. Cash prizes were awarded to all drivers on the grid, including reserve drivers.
"This is the culmination of a fabulous debut season," said Catherine Bond Muir, CEO of W Series, at the event, "and it gives us so much pleasure to award these cash prizes as we know how important this will be for the careers of these talented young drivers - and especially since many of them will be investing in more racing as a direct result."
"This has been a career-changing year for me," said Chadwick, "and I still can't quite believe everything that has happened over the course of a few short months.
"The crowning achievement was obviously winning the title against some mega-talented drivers, and I'm not just proud of that, but also proud to lead the charge for women drivers in motorsport generally. Bring on 2020!"
Sadly, requests to the W Series comms team for very, very, very high resolution images of the cheques before the payee's names were added went unanswered.