How W Series' standout star took the challenge to its champion

Having finished third in the inaugural season of W Series in 2019, Alice Powell wasn’t exactly an underdog coming into this year. But unlike some of her competitors, including the reigning champion, she didn’t have a regular seat elsewhere to fall back on for race sharpness when the COVID pandemic forced W Series into a hiatus in 2020.

Her 2020 was spent largely on the sidelines and by the time W Series 2021 got underway at the Red Bull Ring in June, she hadn't raced a car for 10 months - and even then it was the boxy Jaguar I-Pace in that championship's Berlin farewell the previous June. Her last competitive single-seater outing had been in the August 2019 W Series finale at Brands Hatch, her only win of the 2019 campaign.

That ring rustiness explains why she didn't have especially high expectations for the all-female championship’s second season, but Powell took three wins and five podiums across the year, with standout weekends at the season opener at the Red Bull Ring and her Silverstone home race as particular highlights.

PLUS: The comeback trail Brit making the most of a second chance

She gave “absolutely everything” in her qualifying lap at the British Grand Prix support race to take pole, and although Fabienne Wohlwend took the lead off the line, Powell snatched back the lead just five laps before the chequered flag in “a race weekend I’ll never forget, because obviously winning in front of your home crowd is super special”.

Powell only finished outside the top six once, at the second Austria race, where she suffered technical issues similar to those which went on to scupper her hopes of claiming the crown at Circuit of the Americas during qualifying.

The Briton battled double champion Jamie Chadwick to the very end, heading into the season finale level on points, and charged through the field from 10th to take a podium spot in the first race. But her sixth place finish in the last race wasn’t enough to take the title, at which point Powell “knew that that clearly was not enough and that we’d lost the championship”.

Storming drive from tenth to third in the opening race kept the title battle alive to the final race

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Reflecting on that weekend in Austin, the 28-year-old's disappointment is palpable.

“Going into that final race weekend, I knew it was going to be difficult, I knew Jamie was going to be strong,” Powell tells Autosport. “Obviously, quite a few things didn't go our way. We had a few car issues in the first two free practice sessions, and then an issue as well in qualifying. So after qualifying, I knew it was going to be extremely difficult. But I had a good race one, and then race two, we made a set-up change and that really didn't help - so we couldn’t move forward.

"Our [race] pace, because we had no problems, was really good. So it's a shame that we couldn't just have done that in qualifying without the issues obviously. Otherwise, it could have been a different story" Alice Powell

“It was just probably the worst weekend of the year, really. It was really disappointing to not obviously win the championship. To be vice champion - I still don't like saying it, vice champion probably sounds a little bit better than saying finishing second - but I would still like to obviously have been coming here and talking to you saying that I was champion.”

Come the first race, Powell was “a little bit concerned” about starting “basically slap bang in the middle of the field” and getting embroiled in a first corner incident. But she “had a really good launch off the line” and made strong progress through the pack, eventually passing her protege Abbi Pulling for third on the final lap and taking fastest lap for good measure.

“I just knew I had to make as many places as possible and that Jamie was probably gonna either win the race or finish in the top two,” she says. “From my point of view, I just had to try to keep everything alive and just move forward as quickly as possible. Our pace, because we had no problems, was really good. So it's a shame that we couldn't just have done that in qualifying without the issues obviously. Otherwise, it could have been a different story.”

Powell had limited the damage, but with Chadwick starting race two from pole and Powell once again mired deep in the pack, it was only delaying the inevitable - unless Chadwick encountered misfortune.

PLUS: How Chadwick’s second W Series title poses more questions than answers

“Once you cross that line, and obviously I knew she'd won the race and I'd finished sixth, I knew that that clearly was not enough and that we’d lost the championship,” recalls Powell. “And it wasn't really until I got out the car and saw the celebrations I thought, 'Yeah, this is pretty crap really.'”

Powell congratulates Chadwick after coming up short in the COTA finale

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Powell's impressive season has proven her rapid pace and determination, but it came after years away from on-track action. In 2009, aged 16, she competed in the Formula Renault UK Championship, becoming the youngest female driver to have ever taken part. The following year, she won the national-level BARC-run Formula Renault series before making the enormous leap to GP3 for 2012, becoming the first woman to score a point with eighth in the Monza season finale. But a lack of funding put a halt to her racing career, forcing her to return to working with her tradesman father until W Series’ inception in 2019.

Alongside W Series she also coaches drivers, including Pulling, whose eighth place finish in the 2021 W Series standings from just four race starts has earned her a guaranteed place on the 2022 grid. The 18-year-old has also struggled with funding issues this year, forcing her out of British F4 mid-season – something Powell can only relate to too well.

“She's had a difficult year,” Powell says of Pulling. “She's had some really low times in F4, none of it to do with herself. So for all her hard work to pay off at COTA and to see her on the podium, getting pole position [for race one] as well, was really nice.

“I've been there where you run out of money and you don't know what you're doing, you don't have a drive and people say, ‘Well, at least you got some racing in’. But that's not the point. If it’s a career you want to do and you run out of finances, it’s super difficult to try and pick yourself up. It was really tough seeing one of my drivers going through something that I sort of experienced before, where you feel like you have got nothing.

“I've had numerous seasons where they were really last-minute deals, you don't know that you're racing and then three weeks later, you're racing. So I sort of knew what she was feeling. She's still quite young and this is her first experience of having to pull out of a championship due to budget, and it is tough. There’ll be obviously many other drivers that have been in Abbi’s position that can relate and say how tough it is.

“I always say, and I always try and stick by, if one door closes, another one opens. I had a door that was shut for like four or five years, but another one opened - that was W Series - and what was really good for her was having W Series.”

Powell is proof that success in W Series can lead to other opportunities, joining Formula E team Envision Racing as their development driver in July. She took part in this week’s 2021-22 pre-season testing in Valencia, subbing in for Robin Frijns on Tuesday.

W Series performances earned Powell a call-up to sample the Richard Mille ORECA in the WEC's Bahrain rookie test

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

She also took part in the World Endurance Championship's rookie test in Bahrain last month, driving an ORECA LMP2 car for the Richard Mille-badged Signatech team alongside Chadwick. Powell's only previous sportscar experience was in an Acura NSX GT3 when she made an IMSA SportsCar Championship cameo in 2019, but she enjoyed her first experience in a prototype.

“Endurance racing is something that I definitely like to try in the future - fuel saving and tyre management is something which definitely appeals to me,” she says.

Though Powell has “no idea” what her plans are for 2022, she has the option to stay in W Series as one of the top-eight finishers. But she says there are “some other offers potentially on the table as well”.

"If one door closes, another one opens. I had a door that was shut for like four or five years, but another one opened - that was W Series" Alice Powell

“I've got lucky enough to have some doors open and some opportunities that have been created,” she says. “What I'll be doing next year is still sort of a mystery to me. So I'm just waiting to see what sort of offers that I do eventually get and which opportunities I decide to take.”

What is for certain is the boost W Series has given to Powell's career. It resurrected her single-seater racing prospects after years away from the paddock and has drawn attention from teams for next year – and that can only be a good thing.

Powell is unsure what her future in racing holds, but is optimistic that her 2021 performances have opened doors

Photo by: Alastair Staley / Motorsport Images