Jamie Chadwick Secures Williams Development Role

[R1Joel]

I am 100% against women getting drives for the sole reason that they are female when they are many better male options, but Jamie's race record actually looks pretty good, way better than pretty much any other woman I've seen get into good seats. Carmen Jorda for example who achieved absolutely nothing and still got a development seat or Renee Gracie in Australian V8s who had a fully sponsored drive in the development series for 3 seasons without a single top ten finish.
I don't expect she will go anywhere at Williams, but hopefully she get gain experience and get some success through other means.

 

[NikiGouda]

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

Ehhhh...just like 99,9% of open wheeler girls, maybe?

 

[RobertGracie]

I am sure shes gonna get to F1, all shes gotta do is win W series thats 18 Super licence points and then if she wins F2 thats a full 40 points for it and then shes got 58 Super Licence points to qualify her for F1 and then who knows.....but thats a long way ahead....

 

[AlexBfromG]

I am sure shes gonna get to F1, all shes gotta do is win W series thats 18 Super licence points and then if she wins F2 thats a full 40 points for it and then shes got 58 Super Licence points to qualify her for F1 and then who knows.....but thats a long way ahead....

Calm down guys, "and then she is gonna win this and this and that", there are endless amounts of hotheaded boys out there who wanna have a say in championships - not to mention the phsyical demands, GT4 Cup or 30 mins F3 are not the end all be all of phsyical stress.

 

[RobertGracie]

Calm down guys, "and then she is gonna win this and this and that", there are endless amounts of hotheaded boys out there who wanna have a say in championships - not to mention the phsyical demands, GT4 Cup or 30 mins F3 are not the end all be all of phsyical stress.

Yeah I understand that, I am not gonna say shes gonna do it in 2 years, I would think a more reasonable 3 to 7 years at most shes got a lot to learn and who knows, build the experience up a bit get a test drive with a Formula 2 team and see how that goes and then maybe it will be her turn to show everyone up in F1

 

[aka2k]

Hope it's because she's the best for the role, not because she's the best for the woke. Otherwise, it's another nail in the Williams coffin.

 

[RobertGracie]

Yeah shes got talent and guts but I do hope other F1 teams notice the W Series and say "Hmm thats interesting lets see if we can get some drivers from there to help us out" I know Merc and Ferrari may not do it, but with Vicky Piria there it could be interesting theres a lot of good talent there, give them time and a few years to toughen up at that level then who knows they could land up with an F2 team saying "Yeah lets have an entire female lineup from W series and get them helping us out" and then who knows

 

[RichardHessels]

Calm down guys, "and then she is gonna win this and this and that", there are endless amounts of hotheaded boys out there who wanna have a say in championships - not to mention the phsyical demands, GT4 Cup or 30 mins F3 are not the end all be all of phsyical stress.

F3 brake pedals do 120-150 kilos for a full stop and they have no powersteering.
Still a handull getting such a vehicle tossed around corners.

 

[Richard Dastardly]

People are still banging on about physical ability? drivers of any gender are athletes, it's not relevant.

 

[AlexBfromG]

People are still banging on about physical ability? drivers of any gender are athletes, it's not relevant.

yeah, thats why transgender athletes are running circles around female athletes.

 

[Neilski]

People are still banging on about physical ability? drivers of any gender are athletes, it's not relevant.

For sure it's not everything, but it's also really really not entirely irrelevant.

 

[Neilski]

yeah, thats why transgender athletes are running circles around female athletes.

Well, I wouldn't have been quite as blunt as that, but there's a good point lurking there.
The athletics governing bodies have been agonising about rules for a reason (e.g. regarding hormone levels).

However, for any given person, the statistics don't matter. If Jamie's capable of building up the physical strength and endurance to drive an F1 car, and of course fast enough to get a seat, then I hope she gets the chance to do just that.

 

[Richard Dastardly]

Running speed is hardly relevant to driving - you need to be strong enough to use the controls and thats it for power and we're not talking weightlifting here, we're talking an occasional shove on a - let's point out, *completely adjustable* stiff pedal. The rest is endurance & perhaps some concentration on neck muscles - that's basic fitness training anyone can do. That debate is a red herring.

 

[Neilski]

Well, I'd say that the neck muscle thing is really not a small issue.
Plenty of male drivers are unable to cope with a long stint of cornering at in excess of 4 g and so they end up resorting to resting their heads while in the long corners. Most F1 viewers will have seen this happen on the in-car video.
I can't imagine how this isn't going to be considerably harder for women - I'd fully expect the modest differences in head+helmet mass to be overwhelmed by the very significant differences in muscle strength.

More generally: given that succeeding at something like F1 needs you to excel in so many different areas (both physical and cognitive), such that only a tiny fraction of men or women will ever be credible candidates for it, I would argue that any factors which favour one sex over another can really quite dramatically reduce the size of the pool of the unfavoured group who can demonstrate competitive performance with the favoured group.

Btw, for the record, I would love to see an F1 grid with a whole bunch of female drivers. I have serious doubts that it will ever happen, and not merely because of sexism. With any luck I'll be proved wrong, and perhaps the W Series experiment can be the catalyst that pushes things in the right direction.

 

[Antony Snook]

Remember Susie Wolf she tested a Williams. Where is she now. And who needs Formula W. Or whatever they call the new Ladies Series.

 

[Fat-Alfie]

Well, the average male brain weighs 1336 gs, while the average female brain weighs 1198 gs, so about 90%. Assuming the rest of the head is proportionally smaller too, and the average female racer is 10% weaker than their male counterparts, I don't see neck strength being a huge issue

 

[Antony Snook]

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

Once a salary cap is in place and enforced Williams along with other teams will advance up the grid.