The W Series may have cancelled all on-track action in 2020 due to the Coronavirus pandemic, but with a successful Esports league underway they have big plans for 2021.
It was undoubtedly a big disappointment when the W Series announced that it would be cancelling all on-track action for 2020 due to the Coronavirus and the impact that the virus had on DTM, the series W Series support. However, when the announcement was made it was with the assurance that the all-female series would be back in 2021 – and better than ever. With a successful Esports league currently underway on BBC iPlayer, and all the usual W Series social media channels, the wheels are already in motion to make 2021 better than ever.
Speaking to the assembled press, CEO Catherine Bond Muir outlined the plans for the 2021 season and the challenges that come with trying to race in a pandemic and having to cancel a season.
Firstly, looking into the calender for 2021, it was already announced that the W Series were going to be racing with Formula 1 in the USA and Mexico. But the W Series are obviously speaking to a number of series at the moment with a desire to race internationally and to have as wide a geographic spread as it possibly can.
“We will race at least eight races and may well be ten races,” Bond Muir stated. Going further, the W Series CEO said, “I don’t know the number of races that we would have, but we would be delighted to have up to ten races. We would love to go into Asia too. We always said that we would do that in our third year. I think we are looking internally at next year being our second year, for very obvious reasons, as we had to go on sabbatical this year. So we are not ruling Asia out, but I think it may well be we– but I have much more certainty that we’ll be there in ’22 than ’21.”
The series was part of the support race schedule for DTM and was a very successful partnership in its opening season. Looking at the practicalities of that new season given the effect the pandemic has had on the DTM series and the news that Audi will be pulling out after 2020, Catherine said, “Well, it’s not for me to comment on DTM and what will happen to them, but we certainly haven’t given up racing on them. We’ve had a fantastic partnership with them to date and we would love to carry that on.”
With Audi pulling out of DTM, it’s a big blow for the German touring car series with DTM chairman of promoters Gehard Berger calling it “difficult for the series to take,” so would the W Series even have a partner to race with come 2021? “We are looking at lots of different potential opportunities,” Bond Muir began. “Either with other series or maybe we would do our own races, but we’re just working through the economics on that at the moment.
If DTM is racing, we would love to continue the partnership, but if it doesn’t, then we do have potentially– we have backup plans. We’re looking at everything at the moment. I mean we don’t operate in a microcosm.”
Looking at this year, W series made the decision to cancel the 2020 season. A decision that, despite not being the outcome anyone wanted, was probably the best given the global situation. Bond Muir expanded on the reasons behind this. “The decision-making process took place over a three month period, and it really felt like we were plugging a dyke and then the dyke turned into an enormous dam”, she began. “There were lots and lots of different reasons as to why we didn’t race this year, but I think simply given the fact that our drivers from certain countries aren’t actually allowed to travel at the moment, actually that alone means that our decision has been vindicated just on that basis. It would be remarkably unfair to have W Series consisting of some drivers, and then other drivers can’t partake in it because of they’re not allowed to travel outside their country.”
Cancelling a series obviously comes with financial cost and Bond Muir was happy to share her views on how this may effect the series going forward. “I think there is a macro effect that no-one really knows yet about how quickly businesses will bounce back. So obviously sponsorship deals that we would have got may well be impacted going forward but we just don’t know, as in no-one knows, about what is going to happen to the marketing budgets of major companies going forward. That obviously may be the case. I mean certainly one of the reasons why we went on sabbatical this year was to preserve cash so that we didn’t spend our money on a series that was not as brilliant as the first series.
I personally felt very strongly that I didn’t want the second series to be less good than the first, and I think– and next year, unquestionably, will be bigger and better. We’re having so many fantastically positive conversations about W Series. Obviously, we are of interest to a whole variety of sponsors and partners because we do represent that diversity piece that so many people are looking for. So I think that on balance, I don’t think it would have cost us any money because the forecast sponsorship income that we were forecasting for this year was not bigger than what the race costs would have been.
I’m fantastically positive on one hand, but I’m quietly cautious on the other, because no-one knows where the world will be in another six months’ time.”
With this uncertainty in mind, Bond Muir was happy to expand on the partnership with title sponser Rokit that was signed last year and the impact the pandemic has potenially had on that. “We haven’t been discussing title sponsorship with anyone since we’ve started”, she began. “We are looking obviously for more sponsorship at a series level, and unquestionably, all of those brilliant and fantastic conversations that we were having just before COVID hit, obviously fell off a cliff. Hopefully those discussions will be reinstated once the world looks as though it’s in a better place.”
Moving onto the current season, the W Series are currently running a very successful and highly entertaining Esports league, broadcast on BBC iPlayer and all the usual social media channels. Although no subsitute for real racing, it is proving to be hugely successful, with the 2020 crop of drivers, plus some special guests taking part in some excellent racing. Bond Muir was happy to share her thoughts on it all. “Well, there are a lot of things that did impress me about it, but I think the thing that I’m absolutely bowled over about is the numbers of people that are watching,” Bond Muir explained. “More importantly, the numbers of young people and by definition, a lot of those people are on social media, and therefore are brand new fans of W Series. They’re not traditional motorsport fans that watch us on TV, so I’m massively excited about spreading W Series to a brand new audience, and hopefully, those people who like watching our esports series will be more likely to switch over to television and watch our real-life racing next year too.”
Expanding further the W Series CEO said, “I think it has been so successful that I expect some sort of Esports series to continue going forward, and then obviously the racing has been great. I was getting slightly nervous that it was going to be the Beitske Visser show, and no-one else was going to have a look in, But it’s great to see Irina [Sidorkova] and Marta [Garcia] inching closing to her and hopefully, we’ll have a cracking end to the season.
Personally, I don’t think there is any replacement for on-track action, but I think what we did is provide a mechanism and means by which people could follow W Series in as good a possible substitute environment as we could have. I think it’s been so successful that I would expect that to continue. I don’t personally see it as now being a substitute, I see it as being an additional activity for W Series to keep engaging a new and younger audience.”
The reverse grid race for last year was a season highlight and Bond Muir spoke about the prospect of more in 2021. “I have noticed that there is a lot of interest. I think we would certainly like more reverse grid races, especially if we could repeat the experience at Assen. I’m not convinced we can necessarily have them as championship races, and that’s all bound up with television, but we certainly will, if possible, have reverse grid races. I mean what we’re about is to produce as exciting races as possible.”
With no decision taken yet on the qualifiers for 2020 going into 2021, one such qualifier, Jamie Chadwick is currently the Williams F1 development driver and is currently taking part in the 2020 Formula Regional European Championship for Italian outfit Prema Powerteam, success that has come her way thanks to exposure and her performance in the W Series. Bond Muir shared her thoughts on whether the defending champion would be racing in 2021. “I don’t know. I have very mixed feelings as to whether Jamie will be part of us or not because if she’s not racing with W Series, that means that she’s gone on to do greater things and racing in more senior series,” she began. “I feel a bit like a parent who’s saying goodbye to a child who’s going off to university. I just have very mixed feelings because personally, I would be very sad not to see her around because she’s a great personal part of W Series and we all love her involvement, but I would be very proud if she went on and got a high-profile drive somewhere else.”
It is a bittersweet pill for the W Series as the loss of their defending champion would mean the series’ goal of promoting women sports is working. Bond Muir expanded, “I mean we are a platform to promote women into higher echelons of motorsport and that would just prove our thesis as to what we are, so we would applaud the fact that Jamie would go on. Obviously, she’s got her drive with Williams and she got that after she joined W Series, so that’s part of our story. Who knows, Jamie may be the first driver who gets into Formula 1!”
On the subject of women’s sport, Bond Muir was happy to share her thoughts on a few initiatives in the world of motorsport designed to promote female involvement in the sport. The first being Ferrari’s involvement in the FIA Girls on Track programme, an initiative set up to help young female drivers reach the highest level of motorsport. Ferrari will collaborate with the FIA, signing a four-year agreement with the aim of having two female youngsters competing in full-time FIA Formula 4 Championships as part of the Ferrari Driver Academy. “Well, it is the Ferrari, we fully endorse it. We have contacted Ferrari about this and we are very, very supportive of it. As we are with any initiative that promotes women in motorsport. It could potentially dovetail fantastically into W Series because it covers women or girls between the age of 12 and 16, and obviously, our drivers have to be at least 16 years of age, So it could potentially be a great feeder initiative into W Series. As with any initiative that promotes women in motorsport, we’re fully supportive of it.”
The second being looking into any cross championship promotional activies as a way of enhancing the publicity not just of the W Series but of all females that are racing on two and four wheels. ” I personally am fantastically pro it. I think it’s very important that women are seen as not working in silos and are seen as being collaborative together”, Bond Muir stated. “I think what has happened in the last few years but there’s a lot more, we have to go much further is that when I started planning W Series there was a very strong opinion that, “It’s all very well and good and worthy, Catherine, but actually no-one watches women’s sport.” I think for all of women’s sport we need to work together to send all the positive messages on how exciting sport is, and when women compete it is just as exciting as men’s sport.
I mean you only have to look at tennis, for example, to see that there are lots of differing opinions at different points in the cycle as to whether women’s tennis is more interesting than men’s tennis, or more exciting. That’s in the era of the serve and volley. Unquestionably, personally, I think, the women’s game was much more exciting, and I would like those sorts of debates to start happening with motorsport as in two wheels as well as four wheels. But certainly, I think I would be more than happy to promote all women in sport and in motorsport.
The final initiative is looking at the possiblitly of reaching out to schools in much the same way as Dare to be Different, the scheme set up by former Williams driver Susie Wolff designed to promote motorsport to girls aged 8 to 12 along with STEM subjects. In response to a question asked after the cal,l a W Series spokesperson said, “We at W Series commend the work that Dare to be Different and F1 in Schools UK are doing. Encouraging young girls to engage with motorsport and indeed pursue a career in it is central to our mission. As the business grows we will look for more ways to reach and inspire our young audience, and in fact we are already in exploratory talks with agencies who may help us to do exactly that at some point in the future,”
Finally, Bond Muir shared her views on the Formula One “We Race as One” iniative and where the W Series fits into it. “Well, by definition the W Series is at the centre of the argument of diversity on women. As far as diversity is concerned, we fully support it. Naomi Schiff is a black driver and she’s now our ambassador for diversity and inclusion, so it is a subject that is fantastically important to us. For me personally, I’ve just become chair of the Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Committee on Motorsport UK, which I’m a board member of, so it really is at the heart, I think, of our DNA.
We want to stand up and promote all forms of diversity. Personally, I applaud what both Lewis and Mercedes have done. I think that they brought a massively important issue to the fore. The fact is that historically motorsport has been a white sport, and it’s important for the ongoing success of any sport to be representative of its communities, and therefore we need to understand the reasons why there aren’t more black people not only in drivers but in the whole ecosystem of motorsport. Whether it be amongst mechanics and engineers. That is what is at the heart of the Hamilton Commission, is to find out the reasons why there aren’t more black and mixed ethnic people in motorsport.
You can currently watch all the 2020 W Series Esports league action on BBC iPlayer, BBC Red Button, BBC Sport website and W Series’ Twitch, YouTube and Facebook channels. Race action begins at 7pm BST, every Thursday.
