16-02-2025
Exclusive Jaguar's Formula E rookie Jamie Chadwick inspiring female racing drivers
Jamie Chadwick has happy memories of racing in the Gulf. Her motorsport career has been punctuated by many pioneering moments and in 2019 she became the first female winner of the MRF Challenge – a single-seater series that held races at Dubai Autodrome and Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir.
That same year, Chadwick also became the inaugural champion of the all-female W Series – a title she successfully defended in each of the next two seasons. She has gone on to break new ground in motorsport and just last year became the first woman to take an Indy NXT series pole and race win. In 2025, she will compete in the iconic European Le Mans series.
'I've absolutely loved racing in the Middle East,' Chadwick tells Al Arabiya English. 'The first single-seater championship I won was in the region and that's where I really started to fall in love with motorsport. I think some of the best races we've seen [in recent years] have been in Jeddah.'
This week, Chadwick returned to the Gulf as Formula E – the world's leading all-electric racing series – made its debut in Jeddah after six years of being held in Riyadh. While she was not among the 24 drivers competing in the Jeddah E-Prix, Chadwick did have the opportunity to accelerate around the streets of the Saudi city as part of 'Rookie Free Practice'.
Taking place ahead of the main race, the free practice gave teams the chance to give car time to new drivers who have not raced before in Formula E. For Chadwick that meant linking up again with Jaguar TCS Racing, the winner of last season's Formula E Teams' Championship. She had participated in rookie tests for Jaguar before, most recently in a milestone all-female Formula event in Valencia in November.
'Valencia was a great opportunity to reignite the relationship with Jaguar,' Chadwick explains. 'With that has come the opportunity to also do tests in Jeddah and Berlin [in July]. I will always jump at the opportunity to get in a Formula E Car and now see how much it's developed.
'I think it was fantastic from a visibility point of view. It was great to see so many female drivers get that opportunity and it's great Formula E is capitalizing on that.'
Formula E initially won plenty of praise when it included three female drivers on the grid in its inaugural season back in 2014. But the numbers quickly dwindled and it has been several years since a woman competed in the series. Chadwick is hopeful that the drought will end soon and admits that she would love to race in Formula E.
'You look at the level of drivers that we're seeing in Formula E now and if you don't have a really high level of experience, it's quite tricky to get in these race seats and get in these cars generally,' Chadwick said.
'We see some of the best drivers of our sport competing toe to toe in Formula E and I think that's reflected in how good the racing is. But these opportunities [to test] are really valuable. Is Formula E something I would like to be involved in? Absolutely.'
Chadwick has emerged as one of motorsport's leading female role models, and her ability to inspire greater participation is something she takes very seriously.
She launched her own eponymous karting series for girls in the UK in 2024, prompting a 1900 percent increase in female participation in competitive karting, 700 percent rise in endurance racing entries and 200 percent increase in girls trying karting for the first time.
'It's definitely an important responsibility,' she says. 'I can list examples from when I was younger of drivers giving me advice and responding to me when I reached out to them, so I feel definitely there's an onus on me for me to do that too.
'Of course I have to think selfishly about my own racing and achieving what I want to achieve, but at the same time there's a huge responsibility now to inspire the next generation to get into motorsport. That's something I am really passionate about developing.'
The Jamie Chadwick Series is currently only running in the UK but the British driver says she would love to roll the series out globally, including in the Gulf.
'There's a big interest to take it to the States and of course in the Middle East there are more and more opportunities now for young drivers – it's definitely something I'd like to integrate and encourage.
'I think we're seeing more and more female drivers coming out of the region and I think if we can increase the level of participation, it's only going to help. It is absolutely something we want to grow internationally.'
While Jaguar's Formula E team is currently using Chadwick for testing, the British manufacturer also previously had a female Saudi driver in its cars.
Reema Juffali entered the 2019-20 Jaguar I-Pace eTrophy series and has since competed in a variety of GT competitions - as well as a couple of races in the F1 Academy Series in 2024. Beyond Juffali, fellow Saudis Mashael al-Obaidan and Dania Akeel have represented the Kingdom in international motorsport competition, while Farah al-Yousef has participated in F4 Middle East this year.
'All of those women are acting as amazing role models to the next generation,' Chadwick says. 'It is fantastic and I think that's going to make a huge difference.
'They're showing what they can do coming from the region and competing at such a high level, but also there's so much more infrastructure now available and so many more opportunities for people to race.
'I think we're seeing more tracks being built, more championships being run, and I think that is only going to give more opportunity to the Middle East and drivers to start in a sport, progress and then develop their skills, which is really cool to see.'
