Reigning double champion Jamie Chadwick secured her seventh straight W Series win and extended her lead at the top of the championship standings this weekend at Paul Ricard.
Starting from third on the grid having received a two-place grid penalty after qualifying on Friday, the Briton passed pole-sitter Beitske Visser twice during a dramatic race which saw the safety car be deployed twice, and numerous wheel-to-wheel battles.
Jamie’s fifth victory from five races so far this year – and the 11th of her W Series career – gives her a 70-point lead over nearest challenger Abbi Pulling going into the second half of the 2022 W Series season, which begins in Hungary next weekend.
Jamie finished the race ahead of Spanish team-mates Belen García and Nerea Martí. Belen’s best W Series result and first podium finish moves her up to fourth in the championship. That is one spot ahead of Nerea – who matched her best W Series result of third – and one behind Beitske, who moved to two points behind Abbi in the standings thanks to a fourth-place finish here.
Alice Powell made up more places than any driver in Le Castellet, going from 11th on the grid to fifth. Team-mates Marta Garcia and Fabienne Wohlwend finished sixth and seventh respectively, with British trio Sarah Moore, Abbi, and Jessica Hawkins rounding out the top 10.
The track temperature was higher than it was during Friday’s qualifying session as the drivers lined up for the start of Saturday’s race. Nerea was slow away from P2, which put Jamie straight on the tail of Beitske who started from pole position for the first time in her W Series career. The 2019 runner-up held the lead for less than three corners, as late breaking from Jamie on the entry to Turn 3 saw her make a breath-taking move around the outside.
The safety car was deployed before the end of the first lap as the car of Abbie Eaton was stricken on the side of the start-finish straight after contact with Marta at the start. Abbie was sent flying into the air after being squeezed between Marta and Belen, and the stewards deemed that there would be no further investigation.
The cars went through the pit-lane behind the safety car twice while Abbie’s car was removed. The race resumed after a six-minute delay, and Jamie stole flew away from the field at the restart. But just as the drivers got back up to full speed, the safety car was out again; contact between Chloe Chambers and Emely De Heus at Turn 3 saw Chambers retiring from the race and a 10-second stop-go penalty for De Heus.
With 13 minutes of the 30 minutes plus one lap race remaining, the race was underway once again. Beitske held on to the back of Jamie this time, and that allowed her to regain the lead on the inside at Turn 1. But Jamie came back again, sweeping back into first place with another bold move around the outside at Turn 2. That put Beitske into the clutches of Belen who overtook her for second a few corners later.
As the race entered the final 10 minutes, Jamie set the fastest lap of the race to give her a 1.5-second buffer over Belen and, behind the top two, Beitske ran wide at Turn 11 to hand third place to Nerea.
Most of the action in the closing stages was down to Marta and Fabienne. They battled out in a wheel-to-wheel battle which was finally settled with 10 seconds left on the clock when Marta passed her team-mate for sixth place at Turn 6. That put Fabienne under pressure from Sarah and Abbi, but she held on to seventh place on the last lap. Jamie finished 2.4 seconds ahead of Belen, sparking huge celebrations between her and Sara Morgan, who became W Series’ first-ever woman race-winning engineer.
“I enjoyed that one and it makes up for yesterday. Getting pole position and having that taken away, I felt like I needed to make amends today. I’m really happy. Beitske [Visser] kept me honest initially and I moved back after the safety car, so I’m happy that I got my head down after that and it feels great to get another win.”
Jamie Chadwick of Jenner Racing said: