W Series Spain: Chadwick beats Powell to pole

Chadwick, who celebrates her 24th birthday today, claimed her ninth career W Series pole on the series’ first race at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya by 0.329s after trading late provisional lap times with Powell in a wide open qualifying session.

With qualifying taking place over eight hours after the sole practice session, conditions were completely different given the amount of rubber laid down in earlier track action plus the early evening running.

Pulling set the first representative benchmark for pole position with a 1m46.80s, leading Powell by 0.064s, with less than two-tenths splitting the top five at the end of the first runs.

After a brief Click2Drive Bristol Street Motors 1-2 with Powell and Jess Hawkins trading provisional pole times, the grid order chopped and changed on the final runs before Chadwick stormed to the top for the first time with a 1m45.386s.

Powell batted back with a lap one-tenth faster than her W Series title rival, only for the two-time W Series champion to dip into the 1m44s to secure pole by 0.329s.

Powell’s lap was still good enough for a front row spot ahead of Abbi Pulling for the Racing X squad.

Alice Powell, Click2Drive Bristol Street Motors Racing.

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

Pulling will be joined on row two by Sirin Racing’s Beitske Visser who turned a low-key qualifying performance into a solid result by surging into fourth place late on in the session.

Emma Kimilainen rescued her own qualifying, having been last after the opening runs, to take fifth place for the Puma W Series squad, ahead of home favourites Belen Garcia (Quantfury W Series) and Marta Garcia (CortDAO W Series).

Sarah Moore, who briefly held provisional pole with her first lap on the final runs, was shuffled back to eighth place but the Scuderia W driver will start the Barcelona race in 11th place due to a grid penalty picked up in Miami.

Moore’s penalty promotes Hawkins up to eighth place for Click2Drive Bristol Street Motors, with Fabien Wohlwend (CortDAO W Series) and Nerea Marti (Quantfury W Series) rounding out the top 10 on the starting grid.

The third round of the 2022 W Series takes place at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Saturday (21st May) at 1:40pm BST.

2022 W Series Spain: Qualifying result

Cla	Drivers	Time	Gap
1	Jamie Chadwick	1'44.951
2	Alice Powell	1'45.280	0.329
3	Abbi Pulling	1'45.410	0.459
4	Beitske Visser	1'45.449	0.498
5	Emma Kimilainen	1'45.549	0.598
6	Belén García	1'45.562	0.611
7	Marta Garcia	1'45.630	0.679
8	Sarah Moore	1'45.636	0.685
9	Jessica Hawkins	1'45.659	0.708
10	Fabienne Wohlwend	1'45.882	0.931
11	Nerea Martí	1'46.137	1.186
12	Bruna Tomaselli	1'46.175	1.224
13	Tereza Bábíčková	1'46.179	1.228
14	Juju Noda	1'46.185	1.234
15	Emely de	1'46.513	1.562
16	Chloe Chambers	1'46.610	1.659
17	Bianca Bustamante	1'47.417	2.466
18	Abbie Eaton	1'47.517	2.566
View full results