How ‘milestone’ Jamie Chadwick Indy NXT win proved ‘naysayers’ wrong

This time exactly seven days ago, Jamie Chadwick made history to become the first woman to claim a road course pole and win in Indy NXT.

The milestone was the latest one in Chadwick’s career. Often billed as the great hope to be the first woman in F1 since Giovanna Amati in 1992, that dream may never be realised but she has been fundamental in opening doors for women in motorsport.

Jamie Chadwick made history with her Indy NXT win

Chadwick began her career in karting before moving to single-seaters in British F3 but it was her performance in the W Series that saw her land on many people’s radar.

“She rarely makes mistakes,” Caitlin Wood, who drove against Chadwick in the 2021 W Series season, tells PlanetF1.com. “Her career in Indy NXT, a lot of it was trying to build the confidence and get her to the level of pole position.

“I never had a doubt that when she was there, she’d be able to finish the job and get the win as well.

“Milestones like that, I think are truly important too and it’s such a Catch-22, but it is to silently show the naysayers in the world that it is possible and women can compete at the elite levels of motorsport, and not just compete, but to do well.

“There’s been so many milestones lately, which has been great to see and it is important that these milestones are done at the elite levels of motorsport. We’re talking IndyCar or Formula 1 or NASCAR, the competitive championships around the world.

“So, it is important but hopefully in the future it is not important.”

Chadwick won every season of the now-defunct W Series before making the move to the US last season. At the same time, she has been a member of Williams’ driver academy since 2019 although F1 opportunities have been hard to come by.

“I think any driver wants to be in a race seat and to be in a competitive race seat,” Wood said. “I would love to see her take that next step. Whether that be IndyCar or whether that may be to come back to Europe and maybe take that step into F2 through her affiliation with Williams.

“I think only Jamie and her team will truly know what the right decision for her is, and the trajectory she wants to take.

“I think whatever she does, she will represent women and represent us really well. You know she’ll be competitive and do a good job and will show the best with whatever route she takes.

“I think IndyCar is a really exciting option to get a woman back into IndyCar. But it’s also an exciting option to try and get a woman into the F2 field and on the trajectory to F1.”

Chadwick is not the only woman leading the charge. Another former W series competitor Jessica Hawkins is Aston Martin’s driver ambassador and last year became the first woman since 2018 to test an F1 car. F1 Academy is into its second season, now linked with the F1 teams, and has desires to make the path into top level motorsport easier for women. Wood is competing in this season’s Porsche Sprint Challenge in the UK.

But the question that often gets asked any female driver is when? When will we see the next female F1 driver? Wood is perhaps more optimistic than most in that regard.

“It’s a good question and everyone tries to answer and I don’t think anyone truly knows how to answer it, if I’m honest, because we don’t truly know. But I would like to say we’re the closest we’ve been in a very, very long time.

“There’s different programmes, there’s a lot of affiliations with female drivers through the F1 Academy programme with the F1 teams now.

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“A lot of the time has been the development and giving drivers the time to be able to develop, grow their strength, grow their techniques and that’s what the F1 Academy is doing.

“I think any driver part of the F1 Academy, because of the difference of the cars, they’re still a good few years away from being able to make that progression.

“An F1 Academy car is equivalent to an F4 car so the jump from F4 to F2 is very large for any driver.

“I think the most prospective females in the industry right now are drivers like Sophia Florsch in F3 and Jamie competing in Indy NXT.

“I would like to say in the next five years, we would see somebody knocking on the door. Maybe I’m too far away and maybe it’s next year or the year after but I would like to say in the next five years, we’ve successfully gotten somebody into Formula 1.”

But F1 is more competitive to get into than it ever has been. There is no denying that the current 20 drivers are incredibly talented but that is not to say there are more talented drivers who just have not been granted the practice time or the sponsorship money to compete.

“Like any driver, I feel like it’s a combination of a lot of things. I feel like previously [there have not been] the tools and the development time for female drivers to be able to get into Formula 1 but I also think it’s a financial aspect.

“If we look at a global sports sponsorship market, we know that females receive a very little percentage of that. So hopefully in the next five years we continue to see that [change], and more brands and more partners are able to get behind women in sport and women athletes, and hopefully women drivers to help get them into the elite levels of motorsport like Formula 1.

“We all know, Formula 1’s an expensive game. There’s no denying that, and unfortunately, that is a part of motorsport. So I think whether you’re male or female, you’ve always got that hurdle.”

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