W Series has announced that it will kick off its’ 2022 season with a two-race weekend in Miami.
The brand-new Miami International Autodrome will see the first two of ten races in the W Series calendar take place, making this season the busiest yet with the most races ever featured within the series.
The season will kick off on the 6th-8th of May and will also end with a double header in Mexico City on the 28th-30th of October, after last year’s season-ending double-header in Austin Texas seen more than 400,000 spectators watched Jamie Chadwick defend her title.
Between the two double-headers, W Series will race at F1’s Spanish, British, French, Hungarian, United States, and Japanese Grands Prix – the latter, in October, being W Series’ first-ever round in Asia.
It has also been announced that Toyota Gazoo Racing New Zealand (TGRNZ) will support W Series with the logistics required to get racing cars to F1 race weekends in the most sustainable way this year. Toyota will send 18 of its FT60 cars to be used by W Series during the races at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Spain, and Suzuka, Japan.
It’s the first time that formula categories have worked together like this to stage a championship; W Series uses Tatuus chassis identical to the Toyota Racing Series, but with different engines, and the cars being shipped for those two events will keep their Toyota engines. Sharing cars between the two championships helps to manage logistics and transport them via the sea, instead of via air freight, keeping the series’ carbon footprint as low as possible.
Dave Ryan, Racing Director of W Series looks forward to the season ahead;
“We’ve had two productive pre-season tests, the drivers are ready to hit the ground running, and it’s full steam ahead to Miami. After the success of last year’s final event in Austin, we’re all looking forward to returning to the USA to start the season with a double-header, and it will be very special to be part of the inaugural Miami Grand Prix weekend. “
Dave Ryan also thanked those involved for their help in making the series more sustainable;
“It’s great that we were able to come to an arrangement with TGRNZ over the use of their cars. I would like to thank Andrew Davis and Nicolas Caillol for the enthusiastic and proactive manner in which they approached this project, along with Bob McMurray who made the initial introduction between TGRNZ and ourselves. Putting together an international racing series is a complex operation requiring lots of resources, as W Series stages more races in a single season than ever before in 2022. This is a good solution for W Series as it prevents the use of air freight and allows us to stage our support races at eight Formula 1 grand prix weekends in the most sustainable way.”
The 2022 W Series kicks off in Miami from the 6th to 8th of May. Practice, qualifying and race session times at each event will be announced closer to the time of each event:
Race 1: 6-8 May, Miami, USA
Race 2: 6-8 May, Miami, USA
Race 3: 20-22 May, Barcelona, Spain
Race 4: 1-3 July, Silverstone, UK
Race 5: 22-24 July, Le Castellet, France
Race 6: 29-31 July, Budapest, Hungary
Race 7: 7-9 October, Suzuka, Japan
Race 8: 21-23 October, Austin, USA
Race 9: 28-30 October, Mexico City, Mexico Race 10: 28-30 October, Mexico City, Mexico