New W Series driver lineup announced for 2020 season
All-women single-seater competition W Series has announced its driver lineup for the 2020 season after a successful inaugural season.
The top 12 drivers from the inaugural W Series season have all qualified automatically, meaning last season’s champion Jamie Chadwick and race winners Beitske Visser, Alice Powell, Marta Garcia and Emma Kimilainen are all set to return for the second season.
Chadwick has already built on her success and was named a Williams test driver earlier this year.
Visser, Powell, Garcia and Kimilainen finished in second, third, fourth and fifth place in the 2019 driver standings. Also qualifying for the 2020 driver lineup by finishing in the top 12 in the standings from sixth through 12th, respectively, are Fabienne Wohlwend, Miki Koyama, Sarah Moore, Vicky Piria, Tasmin Pepper, Jessica Hawkins and Sabre Cook.
More from Formula One
- Formula 1: Top Red Bull threat identified for 2024
- Formula 1: Why the Max Verstappen retirement obsession?
- Formula 1: Williams ‘mistake’ hints Logan Sargeant’s future
- Formula 1 awaiting key confirmation for 2024 season
- Formula 1: The ‘championship’ Max Verstappen only leads by 3 points
New drivers Abbie Eaton, Ayla Agren, Nerea Marti, Belen Garcia, Irina Sidorkova and Bruna Tomaselli will also compete in the series, while two further drivers will be confirmed shortly, taking the total number of cars on the grid up to 20.
The six new drivers were selected during a three-day testing process at Almeria in Spain.
W Series CEO Catherine Bond Muir had this to say about the driver lineup for next year, per the W Series website.
"“It’s an impressive list, including the top 12 from our 2019 season, and six new drivers, who all performed well at Almeria. The result is a varied and international group, comprising 18 drivers from 12 countries, ranging in age from the super-experienced Finn, Emma Kimilainen, 30, to the very promising young Russian, Irina Sidorkova, 16.”"
W Series racing director Dave Ryan added the following.
"“I was generally impressed by the 14 drivers whom we tested and appraised at Almeria [southern Spain] last month, and making our selection was correspondingly difficult. But we’ve crunched all the data to the best of our ability, and I’m therefore confident that the 18 drivers whom we’ve selected so far represent an excellent line-up. But we’ve left two spaces available, to allow us a little more time to select the final two drivers who, together with the 18 drivers we’ve already selected, will make up the 20 drivers who’ll contest the 2020 W Series championship.”"
Next. Top 10 Formula 1 drivers of all time. dark
The race calendar for W Series in 2020 is yet to be confirmed, but it will remain tied to DTM. Last season consisted of six race weekends, but following its success and popularity, that could be extended to match the full DTM schedule.