F1 News
W Series champion Chadwick to return to series to defend title!
2019 W Series champion and Williams development driver Jamie Chadwick will return to the series in 2020 in attempt to defend her title before moving on to something new, as the first 18 of 20 drivers for the second season have been announced. The top 12 from last year's series automatically keep their place, with six new drivers added into the mix.
The W Series was made in the hope of finding new talent in female drivers and promoting them into higher categories of racing, but the announcement was met with criticism, some saying it segregates female drivers from the men.
W Series racing director spoke about the new season, saying: "All the stars of our 2019 season will race again with us in 2020 – including Jamie [Chadwick], who’ll be defending her crown, as well as Beitske [Visser], Alice [Powell], Marta [Garcia] and Emma [Kimilainen], who all won races with us last year – but some of the new drivers on our 2020 entry list are clearly very good too.
"I’m consequently hoping our 2020 season will be even better than our 2019 season."
None of last season's top 12 have moved on to another series full time, so they all return and are joined by six debutants for 2020.
Here is the full list:
Top 12 from 2019 season:
Jamie Chadwick
Beitske Visser
Alice Powell
Marta Garcia
Emma Kimilainen
Fabienne Wohlwend
Miki Koyama
Sara Moore
Vicki Piria
Tasmin Pepper
Jessica Hawkins
Sabre Cook
New entries for 2020:
Ayla Agren
Abbie Eaton
Belen Garcia
Nerea Marti
Irina Sidorkova
Bruna Tomaselli