W Series To Join F1 As Support Race Series

Believe it or not, but behind all the articles on F1 2020, tracking my telemetry, and general motorsport I’ve been exposed to, I’m not that excited by it. I still think F1 can be like watching someone repeatedly throwing a brick at a brick wall, expecting the wall to tumble down like a sandcastle being drop-kicked by the moon. It is the same thing over and over again, with some bandages over the brick, but nothing equaling the playing field. Through that, I’ve gone to other series such as Formula E, Formula 2, W Series, and Formula 3 to have a look at their twists on the, pun not intended, formula of racing.

Some things are boring, some are just depressing, and others are amazing. Sometimes it is the latter two conclusions together, as I get a bit annoyed and depressed that amazing young women (and men) are able to do these things. I don’t know what you were doing at age 16, but probably not racing wheel to wheel in open-wheel racing cars. However, as this year has been one of trials and tribulations (on and off the track) for many drivers; This year, F1’s Lewis Hamilton has spent a lot of time promoting diversity. Just over a year ago, I wrote an article after W Series’ first season on “The issue with A Female-Only Series.”

I still hold some of that to be true. There is an issue with the series as a whole existing. Nevermind the fact that when it came to the action on track, there was still a disparity in the quality. My issue isn’t that which you may find in comment sections: “Why can’t they just go to Formula 3” and such. My problem is with the entire sport that has forced such a series to be almost necessary to showcase the talent of young women taking up the chance. A showcase that’s been fairly ground level since the wave of the first checkered flag.

It was announced on Thursday morning, before F1 would go on to hold driver conferences with the press digitally, that the all women’s formula racing series would be joining F1 for eight races in the 23-race projected 2021 season. The news comes months after the 2020 W Series championship was canned due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. A pandemic which had even shaken F1 to its core until July following Winter testing in February. Of course, the news was met with standard PR-like lines from drivers wishing them well and hoping this will bring diversity. Meanwhile, comment sections are filled with derivative tripe, as usual.

A handful of people had gentle and valid criticism of the FIA F1 championship’s other recent announcements. Others have had a heavy-handed approach to the same issue, including another vocal group with nothing but the downright blind stupidity of short-sightedness on the part of the internet commentators. I’ll blast them all right now: “Why can’t they just join Formula 3?” The answer falls on Nikita Mazepin, Lance Stroll, and Daniil Kvyat, three names surrounding F1 seats, in F1 seats, and rumored to now be exiting an F1 seat. It is often politics that is said to have got those three there. The most outlandish being Stroll, as his now exiting “teammate” Sergio Perez drove better than him all season yet is still getting replaced by the incoming Seb’ Vettel.

Why? Politics baby! Lance is, of course, the son of Lawrence Stroll, the Canadian billionaire businessman and figurehead of the consortium that finances Racing Point (Aston Martin next year). It is rumored that Mazepin’s father, Dmitry, will be putting money into an F1 team for his son’s drive next season as well. One reason Perez is said to have kept his seat uncontested for so long is that his Mexican sponsors bring any team much-needed money in the world of fast cars and faster money. So when it is said, “why can’t [the women] just go to Formula 3,” it is the lack of sponsors seemingly willing to bring a woman through, and it is just as hard having a billionaire parent, shockingly enough.

There are (and have been) women surrounding open-wheel racing in the form of a racer for a while. There is just a lack of that modern diversity everyone seems to be banging on about at the top. Last season, Colombian driver and Euro Le Mans series driver Tatiana Calderón was the first woman in the new Formula 2 series, and she was Alfa Romeo F1’s test driver for the season as well. This year, W Series 2019 champion Jamie Chadwick is the reserve/test driver for Williams F1. Her W series rival Beitske Visser was a Red Bull junior before being dropped from the program.

Down the card, women are fighting tooth and nail for positions and seats where they can get them. Though with teams such as Red Bull simply dropping drivers as fast as they get them, it is hard to hold on to those positions. This is seen notably with every pundit of F1 calling for Alex Albon’s head. These things are only made even more frustrating with external issues within the world in general.

As predicted by the rumor mill that doth spin once in a while, F1 would once again rattle the cage of activists. This time, Amnesty International gave a warning to the sport and its organizers following the rumored next step of “Sportswashing” Saudi Arabia. The middle eastern state is one of the most closed-off, repressive, and theologically lead monarchies in the world. It is a place where women are still held separate from men, the religious (and literal fun) police censor dissent or questions in comedy, and there is a general unease surrounding the outside world. It isn’t going to be one of the eight locations of an F1 race supported by W Series, at least one would assume.

Rightfully so, some surrounding the sport have and will say that F1 could and should go into the country and call for change where it is needed before holding a race. However, F1 doesn’t have the best record on this already. The Arab Spring uprising of late 2010 through late 2012 saw F1 cancel the 2011 Bahrain opener to the season, a race track which will see two races by F1 later this month and into early December. Two years ago we were happy to yell at Russia for the World Cup, and four years prior to that, we were shouting about the Sochi Winter Olympics. Yet, since 2014, F1 has hosted a Grand Prix without much talk of gay-rights activism.

I’ll say it now; I am glad W Series is getting such a place within the upper circle of motorsport. It is a spot well-deserved for showcasing the talented women looking at racing as a career. Though the general motorsport world could be doing away with the politicking that is done with sponsors and wealthy parents, there is no other better solution right now for drivers other than more support series offering seats and ways into the world of F1 and other championships. It is an entertaining series nonetheless, and it will be great to see the women of W Series in 2021, if the calendar sticks.