W Series champion Jamie Chadwick will pick and choose her career moves after claiming she doesn’t need to be in Formula 1 “tomorrow”.
The young Briton won the inaugural all-female championship last year but, despite being signed up as a Williams development driver, hasn’t made the next jump many were expecting.
Instead, her 2020 consists of another W Series season as well as Asian Formula 3 before joining the new Extreme E project in 2021.
“I think (a springboard) is what the series is and will be,” Chadwick said of the W Series to RACER.
“It came under a little bit of fire when I said that I was doing it again, but the difficulty is I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding around FIA F3 and FIA F2, and no one quite understands why I don’t just go and do a championship there.
“It doesn’t quite work like that.
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“There’s probably one team you want to be with, that team’s double the price of any other team and it’s a bit of a mad world,” she explained.
“So on my side, it’s just picking the right opportunities and not rushing it.
“I know people think that you have to be in Formula 1 tomorrow but I don’t think I do. So I’ve got time and it’s about making the right choices in that time.”
Last week W Series did get a boost when the FIA designated F1 superlicence points to the first eight finishers in the championship, with 15 going to the winner.
And with any driver needing 40 points to be eligible for an F1 seat, Chadwick insists she will find a route that also enables her to be fully ready for F1 should that opportunity come.
“There is always like a bit of a road plan,” she continued.
“The way I’ve looked at it is there’s sort of the typical career path that’s required to get to Formula 1 and so far my career has not gone in any sense of that direction at all!
“It’s gone left and right more than any other career. I don’t think there’s a fixed way to get there.
“I know what I want to achieve; I want to be ready for Formula 1 if I get there, so even if Claire (Williams, Williams deputy team boss) turned around to me and said, ‘Right, we’ve got an extra seat, do you want it?’ I probably at this point would be very, very reluctant to take it because I don’t think I’m ready yet.
“I think for me it’s all about the right preparation, development process and ideally in the next couple of years there’s the time for me to be able to actually go and have a serious conversation about what might be available.”
