Beitske Visser drove to victory today in Singapore, keeping her hopes for the title alive as Championship leader Jamie Chadwick crashed out of the race with under five minutes to go.
The second win of Visser’s W Series career – her first since the second race of the inaugural 2019 season – came after she snatched the lead at the opening corner from Alice Powell, and successfully holding her off. Pole-sitter Marta Garcia completed the podium at Marina Bay, holding onto third in a tough field.
Visser’s win means she now sits seven points clear of Alice Powell who sits third, and 50 behind leader Chadwick – 75 points remain up for grabs in the battle for the championship. Jamie Chadwick’s retirement after colliding with the wall in the closing stages of the race as she ran in sixth saw her lose the opportunity to seal her third straight title at W Series’ first race in Asia.
Jamie’s retirement resulted in a frantic one-lap race to the finish with the field bunched after a safety-car period. Belen García finished fourth but, behind her, compatriots Jessica Hawkins, Abbi Pulling and Sarah Moore crossed the line little more than one tenth of a second apart in fifth, sixth, and seventh place respectively. Fabienne Wohlwend, Emma Kimiläinen and Abbie Eaton completed the top 10.
After Saturday’s waterlogged qualifying session in the rain, the only change to the starting grid saw Kimiläinen serve a two-place grid penalty for causing a collision during the previous race in Hungary; that dropped her from 10th to 12th, and promoted Chloe Chambers and Eaton by one place each.
Garcia’s impressive lap in the torrential rain during Qualifying on Saturday earned her the second pole position of her W Series career, but as the race began in dry conditions on Sunday, things looked very different. Visser had the better getaway from the front row and overtook Garcia on the inside going into Turn 1. In the midfield, Chadwick made up two places in the first three corners, moving up to sixth by overtaking title rival Abbi around the outside at Turn 3. Further back, Juju Noda was forced to retire with damage to the front-right of the car after eight corners. After the race, she was hit with a two-place grid penalty for causing a collision, which will be applied at the next event.
By the end of the first lap, Visser had built a lead of 1.3 seconds over Garcia who was coming under extreme pressure from Powell. Belen Garcia and Hawkins followed the front three, with Chadwick already 3.6 seconds off the leaders in sixth. Powell churned out back-to-back fastest laps to close to within half a second of Garcia, and with 21 minutes of the race remaining, she took second place with a bold overtaking move before the pair went under the grandstand in the final sector.
Powell was still 2.5 seconds behind leader Visser, but she quickly cut that deficit to less than one second at the halfway stage as she made use of the clean air. Chadwick was now seven seconds off the lead and under pressure from Pulling after running wide at Turn 7.
Heading into the final third of the race, Powell was only three tenths of a second behind Visser, having spent three laps on the leader’s tail but being unable to overtake. Tyres began to degrade, and the overall pace of the race slowed down as the drivers struggled with grip.
With five minutes left, Pulling was the only driver to set a lap time under 2:15.000 and that saw her breathing down Chadwick’s neck, coming within three tenths of the current championship leader, who was the same margin behind Hawkins. Chadwick attempted to overtake Jessica by going late on the brakes at Turn 7, but collided with the barriers after she locked a wheel and was forced to retire from the race for the first time in her WSeries career.
The safety car was deployed as Chadwick’s car was removed from the track, and it only returned to the pit lane in time for the drivers to have one last lap around the track for a final-lap shootout. Visser had a successful restart to retain her lead going into Turn 1 and, though Powell closed to within three tenths in the final sector, the Dutch driver kept her cool to seal victory.
Beitske Visser said:
“I was very happy with that one. It is such a relief to get the win and I’ve been waiting for it for a long time. I think it’s been coming for the last few races as we’ve always been there. I got a good start and in the first few laps I was very strong. Alice was a bit quicker after that, but I managed to hold her off and at the end I was strong again. I had to defend from her once, but after that I knew at which points I had to push to make sure she couldn’t try a move and then it was fine. I was a bit worried about the start of the race as they changed my clutch a bit from yesterday for the biting point and it was a bit of a guess, but thankfully we guessed right!”