Bond Muir on how W Series can “mature” and Chadwick potentially leaving the championship

Catherine Bond Muir, CEO of W Series, has shared her thoughts on how the championship can still “mature” and on Jamie Chadwick leaving W Series.

W Series is the all-female championship that runs alongside the Formula One season, having previously supported DTM. Launched in 2019, the series is now in its third season, after having a year off in 2020 due to Covid-19.

As W Series heads into its sixth round of the season, happening in Singapore, Catherine Bond Muir has spoken about how the championship can further develop. In recent years, W Series has already improved and made progress, especially with Caitlyn Jenner joining as a team owner. But there’s still more to do.

W Series is still “reasonably young”

Speaking to RacingNews365.com, Bond Muir said she is “quite surprised” by people saying W Series is a “mature championship”. As 2022 marks the third season of the series, Bond Muir still feels it’s “sort of reasonably young.”

Bond Muir continued saying:

“I think there’s a long way that we need to go to reach maturity.”

She explained one way in which W Series can achieve maturity. Bond Muir said that W Series will achieve maturity when they “do move some of [their] drivers onto other series.”

“We’ve demonstrated to date that a lot of our drivers are getting a lot more experience in different championships and getting driving opportunities that they otherwise wouldn’t have had.”

Out of the drivers on the grid, there are some who have raced at Le Mans and in DTM as well. For Alice Powell, she has joined Alpine as their Talent Identification and Development Mentor. More recently, three W Series took part in the FIA F3 testing at Magny-Cours where, along with Hamda Al-Qubaisi, drove an F3 car to understand the demands of Formula 3.

As well as the drivers partaking in other racing categories, some have moved into media. Naomi Schiff is now a part of Sky Sports F1 and Powell has also done work with Channel 4 and commentating on the feeder series races in Monza.

But despite all this progress, Bond Muir thinks there’s still more to be done. She did, however, “applaud” that whilst the media exposure is “an unexpected consequence”, it comes from people “trying to attract more women into all aspects of motorsport.”

Bond Muir on Chadwick: “Damned if you do…damned if you don’t”

Jamie Chadwick is probably one of the more notable names when thinking of W Series. The Brit has won each season of the championship so far and could seal her third title in Singapore.

Bond Muir spoke to RacingNews365.com about Chadwick. The Williams Academy driver has won the previous two W Series championships. This season she is looking to defend her title of champion. She also recently completed a test on an IndyLights Car with Andretti Autosport.

Bond Muir has highlighted the impact of Chadwick on the W Series. She said Chadwick is “unquestionably our biggest star, our best known driver all over the world.” However, the CEO admitted that when it comes time for Chadwick to leave the championship, it’s a case of:

“You’re damned if you do and you’re damned if you don’t.”

Bond Muir elaborated saying that she doesn’t “mind having a star and also her leaving us. That is part of our story.” She continued saying that her hope for next season, is to have “some youngsters who make significant progression” if they stay with W Series.

With Chadwick completing her third W Series season this year, it could be likely that she will leave the championship and move on to other things. The ideal place for her would be to compete in the FIA Formula 3 2023 season, which CEO Bruno Michel wouldn’t be opposed to.

Where do you think Jamie Chadwick will end up?

Headline Feature Image: Twitter @bondmuir