Jamie Chadwick Secures Williams Development Role

[Paul Jeffrey]

Former GT4 British GT champion and W Series champion-elect Jamie Chadwick has secured a Development Driver role at the Williams F1 team.

Having risen to prominence by dominating the opening round of the new all female W Series at Hockenheim earlier this month, talented female racer Jamie Chadwick has signed up to become the new Development Driver for the Williams Formula One team this season - a role that will involve her attending at least three European rounds of the championship for the struggling team, and performing simulator duties back at their Grove HQ.

Chadwick, 21, is already under contract as an Aston Martin junior driver alongside her W Series commitments, and thanks to standout performances in both British GT and the MRF 2000 series, Chadwick has long been marked as a talent worth watching in the years ahead.

Having further increased her reputation following a strong opening weekend in Germany during the debut of the new for 2019 W Series, Chadwick is looking to further enhance her career with this new opportunity, something the British racer is understandably excited to be involved with so early into the new season:

“It is a great honour to be joining the Williams Racing Driver Academy. said Chadwick of the announcement. "the time in the simulator is a fantastic opportunity to aid with my development. I look forward to spending time in the factory at Grove, immersing myself within the team and assisting wherever I can. Being a part of the Driver Academy is an amazing platform and I’m excited to get started.”​

Although a development role, it remains unlikely that the driver will enjoy seat time in the car this year as Williams continue to struggle with arguably the worst car in the long and illustrious history of the outfit.

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[falster]

TBH

I reckon this:

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/sport/mot...-cost-him-his-legs/ar-AABBw3Y?ocid=spartanntp

is a more interesting story

Edit: the virtue signalling force is strong in this thread

 

[Kerem Gocen]

About forking time

 

[UMC 22]

Hmm, I wonder how disappointed she'll be that she's unlikely to get seat time in the actual car this year? Not very I would assume, given that it's a piece of junk! Fair play to her though, a nice opportunity for her. Maybe her input will help Williams come up with an actual race car for next season, instead of the turd they have now.

 

[jimortality]

Hmm, I wonder how disappointed she'll be that she's unlikely to get seat time in the actual car this year? Not very I would assume, given that it's a piece of junk! Fair play to her though, a nice opportunity for her. Maybe her input will help Williams come up with an actual race car for next season, instead of the turd they have now.

It looks quite nice though

 

[David Faraday]

Not sure Williams will be a team for much longer the way they are going.....

 

[Eckhart von Glan]

Yep, mid-season fold up is my guess, which would be such a massive shame, remembering Mansell, Patrese, Jones, Reutemans et.al.. They should really start over from some lower tier.
But, fair play to Chadwick, she can start networking now where it counts.

 

[pcraenme]

A bit off-topic...Champion-elect? “One who is to be made a champion.” I did not know racing series have a champion-elect? If Beitske Visser would not have had engine problems during qualifying of the 1st race, she may have been on top of the standings atm. Let’s hope the best driver wins and not the ‘elected’ one.

 

[Richard Dastardly]

Need 14 superlicense points to do test days now... I'm starting to see some rather entertaining conspiracies around acquring them & the other things she's been enthusiastically involved in this year all very F1.

Glad she's got up there, one hopes Williams can provide. Still an AMR driver too.

 

[NDG]

A bit off-topic...Champion-elect? “One who is to be made a champion.” I did not know racing series have a champion-elect? If Beitske Visser would not have had engine problems during qualifying of the 1st race, she may have been on top of the standings atm. Let’s hope the best driver wins and not the ‘elected’ one.

I am assuming because she dominated the first round of W series, and that series' future is murky like Williams? I think that series is something like "testing the waters", and if all they will ever have was that one race, then she's the champ for sure. Or maybe some Game of thrones nostalgia after the worst ending ever for an over-hyped show... You know? Choose your champion to fight for yah kinda sentence....

 

[SVP Skins]

Jamies a fantastic driver. Followed her since her Ginetta Jr days and when she raced in the Brit GT's in a GT4 Aston Martin. She showed she has talent. So thrilled shes part of Williams. Just hope Williams improve themselfs.

 

[Nevini]

Every team is looking for a female driver to reach the top, shame it will never ever happen. She should stick to formula W as that is a woman,s place ;-P

 

[Ghoults]

Her racing record is not good enough for f1. Just compare her record to someone like Marcus Ericson:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Ericsson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamie_Chadwick

 

[BP]

Happy for her, but it kinda sucks that it's 2019 Williams. Eh, you can learn wonders from good and bad experiences I guess.

I am assuming because she dominated the first round of W series, and that series' future is murky like Williams? I think that series is something like "testing the waters", and if all they will ever have was that one race, then she's the champ for sure.

I don't think so, and two reasons why:
1) She won a 30 minute sprint race by 1 second...to say she "dominated", I'd expect the race leader to be at least 1 second/lap faster on average, with at least an 8 second gap by the end of it.
2) There were 2 W-Series races by the time this article was published and Chadwick didn't win that second one...yes she's is in the lead in points, but only 6 pts. higher than 2nd and 10 pts. higher than 3rd, so it's still too close to call with 4 races left.

She's definitely one of the better ones there, but it just felt like a slight to all the other drivers for the OP to call her champion-elect this soon. Plus considering it's 6 races and it's not the headlining event (DTM), I'd be surprised if it's dropped mid-season.

 

[DND]

Maybe her input will help Williams come up with an actual race car for next season, instead of the turd they have now.

Let the polishing begin.

 

[Durge Driven]

She gets real simulator time while 99.9% of open wheeler boys only dream about it

 

[Sean]

Maybe her input will help Williams come up with an actual race car for next season, instead of the turd they have now.

I'm not sure 'development driver' refers the the driver developing the car, but rather the team developing the young driver?
I would not rely on a young driver (particularly with no F1 experience) to develop a car. (Perhaps this is why William is where they are )

 

[kondor999]

I get the unfortunate impression that Williams is doing things these days just for the sake of publicity/attention (to compensate for the lack of actual results). It pains me to say this (as I'm a huge Kubica fan), but I now think it's fairly clear that Williams chose him for PR reasons (it's very hard to believe he could drive as well as Ocon, for instance).

And now this. A GT4 driver in an "F1 development role".

 

[AlexBfromG]

She gets real simulator time while 99.9% of open wheeler boys only dream about it

i think Lewis Hamilton said that the simulator arent anything different of a experience as what we do here, just that i would assume they are having stuff linked to their real world telemetry.

As far as "only Williams", i think the 2019 Williams is still faster than Schumachers Championship machines.
Is the hype around her deserved though? not sure, only competing in higher classes will show that, maybe replacing von Habsburg in DTM??

 

[Richard Dastardly]

As far as "only Williams", i think the 2019 Williams is still faster than Schumachers Championship machines.
Is the hype around her deserved though? not sure, only competing in higher classes will show that, maybe replacing von Habsburg in DTM??

Hype is the same as any young driver trying to get exposure, they'll take all the hooks they can - Jamie seems to be creating some hooks out of nowhere, either she herself or her PR people are doing quite a job here.

Dunno if a works driver ( for two works teams! ) is going to put themselves into a private DTM team, there seems to be politics there between AMR & R-Motorsport ( remember there's more Aston in the Red Bull car than the DTM one, ie more than zero. I suspect there's more Mercedes in the DTM car even this year ). Von Hapsburg is also a pay driver, iirc, she's definitely not getting a seat from Jake Dennis or Paul Di Resta...

A LMP2 seat might work, if she can get a release to do it and actually find one.