How Chadwick became motorsport's face of change

"I fell into this late and kind of by accident," explains newly crowned W Series champion Jamie Chadwick of her introduction to motorsport. "I'm not from a motor racing background and I followed my brother into it initially - I wouldn't have been exposed to it otherwise."

Six years on from the beginning of her car racing career, at the age of 14 in the Ginetta Junior Championship, you'd say that nothing that has happened to Chadwick in the past 12 months that could be considered 'accidental'.

In the space of that one year, she has gone from midfield British Formula 3 contender to the new shining hope to become the first female to start a Formula 1 World Championship race in more than four decades.

She has already won two titles in 2019: first, the Indian-run MRF Challenge trophy at the beginning of the year and now the inaugural W Series crown, wrapped up this month at Brands Hatch, and in which she beat ex-Formula Renault 3.5 racer Beitske Visser to the $500,000 prize fund. In June, there was a class win at the Nurburgring 24 Hours with Aston Martin, while there have also been a couple of Formula E tests in Ad-Diriyah and Marrakech.

"It really has been a crazy year actually, a lot better than expected and a lot more going on," says Chadwick. "The MRF Challenge was a really big turning point for me. I couldn't do another year of British F3 or the next level of single-seaters because the step-up financially was just huge and I couldn't really justify it with what I'd done in British F3.

"What a lot of people don't see is just how much goes into F3, and a lot of people were doing a lot more than I was doing. I realised I needed to stack the odds in my favour a little bit more. I went out there and it felt like I stepped up a level, so when I came back and straight into W Series I was able to hit the ground running after a really good winter."

After finishing in the top five in a one-off in the Asian F3 opener at Sepang (using the same Tatuus chassis and Alfa Romeo turbo engine that features in W Series), Chadwick definitely hit the ground running when it came to the start of the W Series season with a dominant display at the Hockenheim opening round - she topped every session, claimed pole and then scored an emphatic victory.

She was never off the podium at each of the four following rounds, and only missed out in the title decider at Brands Hatch, where she took a fourth place that she described as "awful" despite it still being enough to secure the championship.

You only need to look at the buzz created by W Series at Brands to see that this really does mean something when it comes to proving what women can achieve in a sport - and a society - so misogynistically driven for so long

Her breakout year has not gone unnoticed, not least because Williams F1 team boss Claire Williams was in attendance for that Hockenheim masterclass, with a coveted F1 role arriving with the team in time for Chadwick's 21st birthday shortly afterwards.

"It's a huge honour to be a part of the team and I'm really proud of my involvement with them," she says. "I've known Claire for a while now and she's always kept up to date with my career, so the contact had been there for a long time.

"Just prior to Hockenheim, the conversation opened about potentially doing something with them and I obviously showed a lot of enthusiasm towards that, so they said that they would come out to Hockenheim.

"I don't know how much pressure was on that race, but it was nice for Claire to come and see the first race and she was converted - she had her reservations about W Series to begin with, but actually, she absolutely loved it.

"In terms of what I do in a development role, it's a lot of factory-based simulator work, which I'm finding so useful at the moment. But also I'm immersed with them on race weekends so it's about learning as much as I can in and around an F1 team. There's a lot I do on the simulator that goes on to correlate closely with what the drivers do at the track, so I can actually see what they're doing and know what they're doing because I've done a lot of the work on the simulator.

"They're a proper family and they've welcomed me in really nicely. I've always really looked up to Claire, and Claire herself is one for championing women. You only have to walk around the factory to see that they are the most diverse team in Formula 1. But ultimately for any young driver to be involved with Williams, with all their history, it means a lot."

That involvement with Williams slots Chadwick neatly into a place formerly occupied by Susie Wolff - both literally and in the sense that her stellar 2019 positions her as the leading role model for the next generation.

You only need to look at the buzz that was created by W Series at Brands Hatch, and the attention that Chadwick and all of the other drivers in the field received from the crowds, to see that this really does mean something when it comes to proving what women can achieve in a sport - and a society - so misogynistically driven for so long.

Chadwick says that she didn't face - or at least didn't notice - much prejudice in her early career, but that as she ascended through the ranks she realised she was one of few women in the field and that it wasn't a "normal" place to be for a woman. If W Series' and Chadwick's new-found fame is successful in heightening female involvement, that will soon change - but to have become the face of change almost overnight must be daunting.

All signs point to the statistic that 'no woman has raced in F1 for over 40 years' being consigned to history before long

"I don't take much notice - maybe it's selfish, but I'm just doing it for me," admits Chadwick. "The fact that this might inspire other people is a massive added bonus - but I know what's possible for me to achieve and so I want to achieve that for myself. I know that women are capable of achieving so much in the sport so I want that to happen.

"I think it's fantastic that W Series has the platform and the exposure that it was because I'm desperate for more girls and women to get involved. I have no doubt that there is a female equivalent of Lewis Hamilton out there, but not every person drives a racing car like they can kick a football. I'm desperate for it to happen though and maybe this is the first step."

When Autosport ran its last Women in Motorsport issue in the summer of 2015, it was Wolff who graced the cover, while Chadwick was a 17-year-old successfully bidding for the GT4 class title in the British GT Championship with Aston Martin.

Four years have passed since then, and it now feels as though motorsport has proven that it has - and is inching closer to be willing to act upon - an enormous capacity for change.

Wolff announced her retirement from competition just a year after that Autosport cover, but is still in a public and high-profile role as the team principal of the Venturi Formula E squad and spearheads the Dare to be Different campaign, alongside her new FIA-backed Girls on Track initiative aimed at encouraging school-aged girls into motorsport in a wide range of different fields.

Perhaps it's as a direct result of the achievements of women such as Chadwick and Wolff, or perhaps it's a cultural zeitgeist in our evolving times, but all signs point to the statistic that 'no woman has raced in F1 for over 40 years' being consigned to history before long.

It may be Chadwick who does it, it may be another inspired by her, or it may be another woman just doing it to prove a point to herself - but regardless, now feels the best time to be a woman in motorsport. And that's a bright and exciting prospect.