The W Series

(For a more detailed discussion of Speedqueens’ stance on W Series and a review of the TV show, click here.)

The inaugural W Series championship ran in the summer of 2019. It was billed as the first-ever all-female single-seater championship. (The Esso All-Ladies Formula Ford race in 1985 was actually the first.)

Eighteen drivers were chosen to race Formula 3 Regional cars, with two “reserve” drivers who were intended to deputise for injured colleagues and only took part in a few actual races.

There were six championship races of roughly half an hour each, plus one non-championship race which ran using a reverse-grid format. The series acted as one of the supports for the DTM in Europe.

W Series was launched with a huge media drive, with former Formula 1 driver David Coulthard acting as one of its public figureheads. He was also one of the judges for the initial driver selection events. Lyn St. James, who had previously been pivotal in the similar Women’s Global GT Series, was another. 60 racers from all round the world were assessed; through a combination of elimination and voluntary dropping-out, this was whittled down to 20. All 20 selected drivers would have all of their expenses paid for the summer racing season and would receive a share of the $2m prize pot.

There is nothing especially innovative about an all-female racing series but W Series did introduce some relatively novel concepts, including the no-cost nature of entry. Drivers were made to swap cars after every race and worked with a different team of mechanics every day. This was ostensibly to prevent the more mechanically-minded among them from gaining an advantage. Prohibitions were also placed on testing and competing in F3 cars during the W season. No driver was permitted to take part in an F3 race on any of the six circuits the series visited, unless she was fully signed up for that championship. Testing was not allowed. Drivers were allowed limited sessions on a simulator to prepare prior to a race weekend. There were no competing teams; all cars were run centrally by Hitech Grand Prix on behalf of W Series itself.

Many were critical of the whole idea, chiefly Indycar driver Pippa Mann and European F3 racer Sophia Floersch. Both drivers, along with others, considered it a step towards sex segregation in motorsport and believed that the money involved would have been better spent supporting female racers in existing championships. Some of this criticism died down but a few concerns arose during the season about safety and standards of car preparation. Jamie Chadwick, Alice Powell and others experienced difficulty downshifting under full steering lock in some of the Tatuus FRegional cars, for example. 

Early indications were that W Series was intended as a reality TV-style competition. The first set of driver assessments took place in the unlikely setting of a frozen track and used road cars, not a situation likely to arise in an F3 championship. Announcements of who had made the cut and who would have to “fight for their place” had a distinctly X Factor flavour. However, the races themselves proved popular with spectators as a sporting contest and W became more of a serious competition than when it started. The organisers attempted to mix things up a little by dropping a struggling Megan Gilkes to reserve status after a free practice session where she had been relatively quick, but this proved highly unpopular and was not repeated.

Jamie Chadwick was the first champion, winning two of the six races. This was not unexpected as she was the entrant with the most notable and recent successes on her CV. BMW junior driver Beitske Visser was second. Alice Powell, winner of the final round at Brands Hatch, was third although she could have finished higher had she not encountered a series of car problems. The other races were won by Marta Garcia and Emma Kimilainen. Megan Gilkes won the reverse-grid non-championship race from pole.

2019 Standings

1. Jamie Chadwick
2. Beitske Visser
3. Alice Powell
4. Marta Garcia
5. Emma Kimilianen
6. Fabienne Wohlwend
7. Miki Koyama
8. Sarah Moore
9. Vicky Piria
10. Tasmin Pepper
11. Jessica Hawkins
12. Sabre Cook
13. Caitlin Wood
14. Gosia Rdest
15. Esmee Hawkey
16. Naomi Schiff
17. Vivien Keszthelyi (Reserve)
18. Shea Holbrook
19. Sarah Bovy (Reserve)
20. Megan Gilkes

The top twelve 2019 drivers were automatically invited back for the 2020 season. Any of the eight additional 2019 intake were permitted to reapply for 2020, alongside 15 new drivers. The season was cancelled due to coronavirus.

The 2021 championship was won again by Jamie Chadwick. Eighteen cars started each race, with a rotating series of reserve drivers sharing one of them. The series was now on the F1 support bill and ran for eighth races.

1. Jamie Chadwick

2. Alice Powell

3. Emma Kimilainen

4. Nerea Marti

5. Sarah Moore

6. Fabienne Wohlwend

7. Abbi Pulling

8. Beitske Visser

9. Irina Sidorkova

10. Belen Garcia

11. Jessica Hawkins

12. Marta Garcia

13. Abbie Eaton

14. Miki Koyama

15. Bruna Tomaselli

16. Caitlin Wood

17. Ayla Agren

18. Gosia Rdest

19. Vicky Piria

20. Sabre Cook

The third W Series season was intended to be a ten-round championship, with double-header rounds at the US and Mexican grands prix. A planned race at Suzuka was substituted for Singapore. In an unusual move, the usual W Formula Regional cars were not transported to Catalunya and the similar cars from the Toyota Racing Series were used instead. This was repeated at Singapore. The Singapore race ended up as the least of the season, as money problems meant that the last three races were cancelled.

A team system of sorts was introduced. All cars were run centrally, but pairs of cars carried branded liveries.

Jamie Chadwick dominated once more, with Alice Powell and Beitske Visser picking up one win apiece.

1. Jamie Chadwick (Jenner Racing)

2. Beitske Visser (Sirin Racing)

3. Alice Powell (Click2Drive Bristol Street Racing)

4. Abbi Pulling (Racing X)

5. Belen Garcia (Quantfury W Series Team)

6. Marta Garcia (CortDAO W Series Team)

7. Nerea Marti (Quantfury W Series Team)

8. Emma Kimilainen (Puma W Series Team)

9. Jessica Hawkins (Click2Drive Bristol Street Racing)

10. Fabienne Wohlwend (CortDAO W Series Team)

11. Sarah Moore (Scuderia W)

12. Bruna Tomaselli (Racing X)

13. Abbie Eaton (Scuderia W)

14. Juju Noda (W Series Academy)

15. Bianca Bustamante (W Series Academy)

16. Chloe Chambers (Jenner Racing)

17. Emely de Heus (Sirin Racing)

18. Tereza Babickova (Puma W Series Team)

19. Ayla Agren* (Puma W Series Team)

*Ayla Agren stood in for Tereza Babickova at Singapore after she injured her back in a Formula Regional Europe race.

This proved to be the last W Sseries season, as the championship ran into serious financial difficulties and went into administration.

(Image copyright Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)

Women in Formula E

Thanks to the 2018 in-season test day that featured nine female drivers, Formula E has become somewhat associated with women racers. Carmen Jorda’s continuing association with the series, particularly the Nissan team, has helped this perception, even if her comments that Formula E cars are easier to drive for women than other single-seaters annoyed many.

The sad fact is that no female driver has competed in a Formula E race itself since 2016, when Simona de Silvestro picked up a few points for the Andretti team. This looked set to change at one point, with Tatiana Calderon impressing in the in-season rookie tests and Jamie Chadwick building up a strong relationship with the NIO team, but no new female drivers got on-track.

Another all-female test was held in 2024, moved to Jarama after flooding in Valencia. Abbi Pulling was the quickest, driving a Nissan.

2014-15 season

Simona de Silvestro (Andretti Autosport) - 27th (2 races)

Michela Cerruti (Trulli) - 29th (4 races)

Katherine Legge (Amlin Aguri) - 34th (2 races)

2015-16 season

Simona de Silvestro (Andretti Autosport) - 18th (10 races)

Test drivers:

Simona de Silvestro (Venturi 2018-19, official test driver)

Tatiana Calderon (completed 2019 rookie tests for Techeetah)

Jamie Chadwick (completed 2019 rookie tests for NIO)
Simona de Silvestro (Porsche 2019-20, official test driver)

Alice Powell (Envision Racing 2021-, official test driver)

2018 Ad-Diriyah “female drivers” test:

Simona de Silvestro (Venturi)

Tatiana Calderon (Techeetah)

Jamie Chadwick (NIO)

Carmen Jorda (Nissan eDAMS)

Carrie Schreiner (HWA)

Amna al-Qubaisi (Virgin)

Pippa Mann (Dragon)

Beitske Visser (BMW)

Katherine Legge (Mahindra)

2024 Women's Test, Jarama

Abbi Pulling (Nissan)

Jamie Chadwick (Jaguar TCS Racing)

Bianca Bustamante (McLaren)

Miki Koyama (Lola)

Lena Buhler (Mahindra)

Beitske Visser (DS Penske)

Ella Lloyd (McLaren)

Marta Garcia (Porsche)

Carrie Schreiner (Maserati)

Tatiana Calderon (Maserati)

Jessica Edgar (DS Penske)

Alice Powell (Envision)

Nerea Marti (Andretti)

Gabriela Jilkova (Porsche)

Chloe Chambers (Andretti)

Alisha Palmowski (Envision)

Simona de Silvestro (Kiro)

Lilou Wadoux (Jaguar TCS Racing)

(Image copyright Envision)

Beitske Visser

Beitske after her Lausitz win, in 2012

Beitske Visser is a young Dutch driver with several race wins to her name. Among the current crop of female single-seater drivers, she is probably the most successful, despite her young age and relative inexperience. She began karting competitively at the age of seven, and by 2011, she was competing in the European championships.

Her move into senior motorsport was quick, and she made instant progress. Even her first major race, a round of the 2011 Dutch Supercar Challenge, gave her a win, in the Race 4 Slovakia Praga R4S. For the time being, she kept karting as her main focus, having proved her worth in a car.

In 2012, in search of competitive single-seater racing, she travelled over the border to Germany, to compete in ADAC Formula Masters, which has rounds at Zandvoort. She was driving for Team Lotus.  Her first races, at Oschersleben, gave her a promising ninth and fifth, as well as a DNF, which also caused her to miss the next meeting, as well as the first Zandvoort race. However, she was on the pace on the second day, finishing eighth in the first race, and winning the second one. Later in the season, at Lausitz, she won another race, this time from pole. One of these came from taking advantage of a reverse grid, but was a victory nevertheless, fought for and deserved. Apart from her two wins, her best result was fourth, also at Lausitz. Despite her race-winning speed, Beitske was not always consistent, and mostly finished in the lower half of the top ten. She was eighth overall, despite not doing a full season.

That year, she also travelled to Azerbaijan for some all-star street racing, in a Porsche GT3. She was thirteenth in the Baku City Challenge GT race, alongside Christian Bracke. They were competing against Jacques Villeneuve and Jos Verstappen, among others. Beitske also entered the Sprint race at Baku, in the same car.

Her exploits, and winning ways, in 2012 were enough to draw the attention of Red Bull’s talent scouts. She was signed up to the Red Bull Junior Team development programme for 2013. This meant practical support, and considerable sponsorship for her coming season.

Aided by Red Bull money and guidance, she embarked on a second season in Formula Master. To begin, she carried on where she left off, with eighth and ninth places at Oschersleben.  At Spa, she had another DNF, but it was not serious, and she was 16th and eighth in her next two races. At the Sachsenring, she started off a disappointing fourteenth, but moved up to seventh in the second race, and won the third. This was her only win of the season, but she managed another podium (a third) at the Slovakiaring, and a fourth at the Nürburgring. This added up to a slightly more consistent 2013, and she was tenth in the championship again.

Unfortunately, the Red Bull Junior Team managers were not sufficiently impressed with Beitske’s progress. It was announced in November that she was no longer part of the development squad.

This must have been a big setback for her, but she carried on with her motorsport activities, getting in as much practice and experience as she could, in both karts and cars. She put together a deal with the Spanish-based AVF team for the Formula Renault 3.5 Series in Europe. In order to train most effectively with her team, she moved to Barcelona. Her team-mate was the Swiss driver, Zoël Amberg. Formula Renault was a new experience for Beitske, and proved a steep learning curve. Her first race weekend, at Monza, started with a mystery car failure during the last qualifying session, then moved on to a puncture in the first race. She pushed hard in the second race, made up several places, but then made a mistake, and ended up in 17th place. The second weekend, at Motorland in Spain, did not include a DNF, but did feature problems in qualifying, a fightback, and then a mistakes. She was 18th and 16th.

During a break in FR3.5 proceedings, she accepted a drive in GP3 with Hilmer Motorsport, at her adopted home track of Catalunya. This was the first meeting of the season. Rain, associated tyre issues, problematic qualifying sessions and a poor start in the first race left her 15th and 18th, although as usual, she did make up some places during the races themselves.

Monaco was the next FR3.5 race. She was 17th overall, but lucky to finish, after damaging her car at the start. She managed to set some good lap times during the race itself, but could not convert them into places. However, at Spa, she finally managed her first points finish, a tenth place, after qualifying in 18th. In the second race, she also improved on her qualifying position, despite another little crash, and was fourteenth. In Moscow, she was thirteenth in both races, and was performing better in qualifying. At the Nürburgring, she just managed to finish the first race in 19th, following another puncture. More encouraging was the fact that she qualified in eleventh, with the same time as Zoël Amberg. She struggled to qualify for the second race, in the rain, and was running in twelfth when she crashed into a car going across the track.

In the last round of the season, she achieved her best result: a fifth place at Jerez. She was 21st in the championship. Beitske’s overtaking ability was often noted, a skill which is sometimes lamented in modern motorsport. She was among the leading rookie drivers in FR3.5.

In 2015, she had a second season in FR3.5, driving for AVF again. The early part had some disappointments, including a DNF in the first race at Motorland, and a penalty, for a technical infringement with the underside of her car, at Spa. This was particularly frustrating, as she had qualified in second place, and was dropped to the back of the grid. She bounced back with her first top ten of the year in Hungary, finishing ninth, and she was also tenth at the Red Bull Ring. For the rest of the season, she mostly kept it on track, but could not push into the points-paying positions consistently. She was 23rd overall.

In August, she did another two guest spots in GP3, for the Trident team. She raced at Spa, and finished one of her races, fifteenth place. 

She joined up with Teo Martin Motorsport in 2016, and raced in Formula V8 3.5. It was a solid, if unspectacular season, and she was thirteenth overall. She was a top-ten regular, with a best finish of seventh, which she earned three times, at Jerez, Spa and the Hungaroring.

Although she had quite a limited racing season in 2017, it was a good one, with another win. She had a go at sportscar racing, after the V8 3.5 series was canned. Driving a Schubert Motorsport BMW M4 GT4, she won a European GT4 race at Catalunya. She was 15th in the second race.

She raced again in the GT4 European Series in 2018, driving for the RN Vision STS team along with a rotating crew of team-mates in an M4. Towards the end of the season, she won two races, at the Hungaroring and the Nurburgring, on her way to championship sixth. This year, she was announced as part of the BMW junior driver academy.

As well as the European GT4 series, she made some guest appearances in French GT4s, driving a different team, and in the Nurburgring 24 Hours. 

She continued as a BMW Junior in 2019, making appearances in the VLN and the International GT Open in an M6. She raced in the Pro category for the second half of the year, picking up one second place at the Red Bull Ring and a fourth at Silverstone. Her single race in the Pro-Am class led to a win at the Red Bull Ring, sharing a car with Richard Gonda.

Beitske was also selected for the all-female W Series and quickly became one of its leading drivers. She was second overall, with one win at Zolder.

W Series was cancelled in 2020 due to coronavirus, but Beitske was kept busy. Her biggest achievement was her first appearance at Le Mans, driving for the all-female Richard Mille team in an LMP2 prototype. Partnering Sophia Florsch and Tatiana Calderon, she was thirteenth overall and ninth in the LMP2 class. This was one of five races she did with the team, coming in as a late replacement for the injured Katherine Legge. Her best result was a sixth in class at Paul Ricard. 

Before coronavirus lockdowns hit, she also got some sportscar action in at the Daytona 24 Hours, entering the Michelin Pilot Challenge Grand Sport support race. She drove for Fast Track Racing with Steven McAleer and Robbie Dalgliesh, finishing 22nd in a BMW M4 GT4.

She used a similar car at the Dubai 24 Hours, this time as part of a four-driver 3Y team. They were eleventh in the GT4 class. 

She divided her time between W Series and the Richard Mille team again in 2021. W Series was a less fruitful hunting ground for her, with a best finish of fifth achieved twice at Circuit of the Americas. She was involved in the frightening pile-up in qualifying for the Spa and missed the race itself, although she was not seriously injured. Her final championship position was eighth.

The Richard Mille team ran in the WEC, in the Endurance Trophy class for LMP2 cars with their Oreca prototype. Although the three-woman team crashed out of Le Mans itself, Beitske, Sophia Floersch and Tatiana Calderon held their own in the strongly-contested championship, finishing fourteenth overall. Their best finish was sixth, which they managed at Portimao and Bahrain.

W Series was her only racing in 2022. She was second in the shortened championship after winning the final round at Singapore. This followed third spots at Miami and the Hungaroring.

W Series was cancelled at the start of 2023, but she had other plans. She was part of the GTi Tyres Girls Only team for the Nurburgring 24 Hours, with Fabienne Wohlwend, Celia Martin and Pippa Mann. Driving a BMW M4, they were the first SP8T car home and 81st overall. 

Sportscars were her chief focus in 2023; she raced a Duqueine prototype for two rounds of the German Prototype Cup, earning a best finish of eleventh. In the same BHK-run car, she also made a guest appearance in the Ultimate Cup at Paul Ricard, alongside Francisco Draccone. They finished in 17th place.

She rejoined the Girls Only team in 2024, racing a BMW M4 with Carrie Schreiner, Pippa Mann, Fabienne Wohlwend and Patricija Stalidzane. They entered the NLS and scored class podiums in seven out of eight races. A four-woman team also tackled the 24 Hour race, finishing 47th overall. 

Away from racing, she seems to have considerable gymnastic ability, as evidenced by pictures on her Twitter feed, which show her in difficult balance positions. Despite her ex-pat status, she is proud of her origins, and her car is Dutch orange whenever possible.

(Image from http://www.kartcom.com/it/pressrel/cpr/one-more-victory-for-visser)