Jamie Chadwick, reigning double champion of W Series, has taken pole position for her home race in Silverstone today. She has continued her perfect start to 2022; winning all three races so far this year, and is in prime position to go for her fourth race today with a pole position-winning time of 1:56.758.
Two tenths of a second behind the Jenner Racing driver is Emma Kimälainen of Puma W Series Team, and Abbi Pulling of Racing X sits in third. Beitske Visser (Sirin Racing W Series Team) will lTup alongside Abbi on the second row, and Alice Powell – last year’s race winner at Silverstone – starts from fifth on the grid.
Teammates Fabienne Wohlwend and Marta Garcia of CortDAO Racing W Series Team were sixth and seventh quickest respectively. Abbie Eaton and Sarah Moore of Scuderia W, and Jessica Hawkins of Click2Drive Bristol Street Motors were the other drivers able to get within a second of Jamie’s benchmark lap time, meaning all six British drivers qualified inside the top 10 at their home race.
The 30-minute qualifying session went off to a cagey start as drivers took to a dry race track, which had been damp and green when they had previously practiced on Friday morning. Lap times were deleted multiple times in the first ten minutes, by the end of which Jamie led the way from team-mates Tereza Babickova and Emma.
The entire field pitted for fresh tyres to set up a frantic second half of the session, during which many of the leading challengers had lap times scrapped for exceeding track limits as the pushed hard. With 10 minutes remaining, Abbi posted the second-fastest time despite being hampered in the final sector, before Jessica beat Jamie’s time by five one-thousandths of a second. Jamie regained top spot on her next flying lap, but was then beaten by Kimälainen, who extended her advantage by a further five one-thousandths of a second with five minutes to go.
With the final two minutes to go, Jamie once again topped the table by two tenths, claiming her pole position for the race after her closest competitors failed to improve on their previous runs.
Jamie Chadwick is happy with her result after a challenging qualifying;
“I kind of had to pull that lap out from somewhere. It’s a confidence circuit and I was always just a little bit under. Emma [Kimälainen] put in a good lap and I really had to lay it on the line, and after I did that I found a bit of confidence going into tomorrow’s race. I know I’ve got a strong group of girls behind me so I will see what I can do. You can have a proper race here and I think it might be wet. What will be will be, but I’m just happy I got a bit of confidence in that session, and I can get my head down tomorrow.”
Emma Kimälainen found the change in track conditions challenging;
“It was a tough session as it was different from practice in the morning. The wind was strong and changed the driving a lot. I couldn’t do the things I did in the practice session because of the wind, but I did the most I could. Also, the grip level had changed so there was a lot more grip out there. We didn’t change the car from practice, so the balance changed quite a lot too. We have thinking to do about the set up of the car for tomorrow’s race as the track will evolve again if it’s going to be dry. But I’m happy to be on the front row as you can do what you like from there.”