W-Series is fun 👩🏁

Unlike most sports, in motor racing the sexes compete together. Well, they would, except that almost all the drivers are blokes. There are various initiatives to get more diversity, but a recent anomaly has been the female-only W-Series. This is either an excellent way to get female drivers noticed (they run as support races for F1) or it's a pointless bit of tokenism.

Let's focus on whether it works as a race series. The races aren't too long, and there's usually enough going on to fill the time. The cars are identical, so it's mostly a test of ability. They nominally have teams, but no one takes any notice of that, so again it's focussed on drivers and what they can do. There's usually some contest for the win and the podium places, so I give it a thumbs up.

This is the third season. Both championships so far were won by Jamie Chadwick, and she's had a strong start to this year too. At the end of last year, she was talking about what she was going to do this year instead of W-Series, but whatever that was, it hasn't happened. It's puzzling. She's obviously quick, but the only way to find out is she's quick enough is to give her a seat in F2, which costs millions. If you don't have a (very) wealthy family, you need sponsorship. But think of the publicity if you sponsor a female driver, and even more so if she does well. Sounds good to me, but what do I know? Obviously people who have that sort of money didn't see it like that.

Oh well. The world will continue to benefit the people who need it the least, but I'll carry on watching entertaining races in W-Series. Maybe you'd like it too.

=> #WSeries

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