It was the perfect weekend for Alice Powell, as the Brit took a race win in front of a packed home crowd at Silverstone.
British driver Alice Powell regained her championship lead with a faultless drive in front of a bumper crowd at the home of racing, Silverstone. Her second victory of the year came as 60,000 fans packed into the Northamptonshire circuit as part of the governments events testing pilot scheme.
It was Fabienne Wohlwend who made the best start, challenging pole sitter Powell before taking the lead at Village. Esports Champion Beitske Visser who was starting the race with a brand new engine, made a slow getaway and dropped out of contention straight away with Emma Kimiläinen, Nerea Marti and Sarah Moore all benefiting from the Dutch drivers slow start and were bumped up a place.
Wohlwend and Powell were locked in a battle trading lap times and in doing so pulled three seconds clear of Jamie Chadwick in third. As the race hit the 10 minute mark the leading duo were separated by just six tenths of a second. Further back down the grid, an excellent battle was emerging between, Abbie Eaton and Belen Garcia for ninth with the pair going wheel to wheel at Vale.
Having stalled on the grid, Miki Koyama pulled up and stopped at Village to bring out the safety car with 11 minutes remaining. A brief safety car period and with eight minutes left it was all to play for. Powell regained the lead three minutes later when a mistake from Wohlend meant the Bunker Racing driver ran wide at club and Powell snuck through on the inside.
Despite dipping a wheel into the gravel at Luffield Powell held her never and made it back-to-back victories on home soil having won the last W Series race to be contested in Britain at Brands Hatch in August 2019.
It was a day to remember for reserve driver Abbi Pulling. The 18 year old British F4 driver took part in her first W Series race and her first F1 weekend and held her own finishing an impressive eighth and picking up four championship points.
Speaking on her race win Powell said; “It’s an amazing feeling to win on home soil. I’ve experienced lots of British Grand Prix weekends but never from this side and I want to thank every single fan out there for the amazing support. To race and win in front of this crowd is the stuff that dreams are made of and it was extra special to have my family here to see it. It wasn’t the best of starts for me, I got a bad launch and was behind Fabienne [Wohlwend]. But I knew I had the pace and was faster, and luckily she made an error which let me sneak through and I managed to bring it home from there.”
W series next stop is Hungary, supporting F1 on the 30th/31st July.
Race Result
| Cla | # | Drivers | Laps | Time | Gap | Interval | Points | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 27 | Alice Powell | 16 | 32’39.244 | 25 | |||
| 2 | 5 | Fabienne Wohlwend | 16 | 32’41.163 | 1.919 | 1.919 | 18 | |
| 3 | 55 | Jamie Chadwick | 16 | 32’43.274 | 4.030 | 2.111 | 15 | |
| 4 | 7 | Emma Kimilainen | 16 | 32’45.028 | 5.784 | 1.754 | 12 | |
| 5 | 32 | Nerea Martí | 16 | 32’47.727 | 8.483 | 2.699 | 10 | |
| 6 | 95 | Beitske Visser | 16 | 32’48.334 | 9.090 | 0.607 | 8 | |
| 7 | 26 | Sarah Moore | 16 | 32’49.735 | 10.491 | 1.401 | 6 | |
| 8 | 49 | Abbi Pulling | 16 | 32’50.332 | 11.088 | 0.597 | 4 | |
| 9 | 44 | Abbie Eaton | 16 | 32’51.389 | 12.145 | 1.057 | 2 | |
| 10 | 21 | Jessica Hawkins | 16 | 32’53.235 | 13.991 | 1.846 | 1 | |
| 11 | 11 | Vicky Piria | 16 | 32’53.739 | 14.495 | 0.504 | ||
| 12 | 97 | Bruna Tomaselli | 16 | 32’54.266 | 15.022 | 0.527 | ||
| 13 | 19 | Marta Garcia | 16 | 32’55.131 | 15.887 | 0.865 | ||
| 14 | 37 | Sabre Cook | 16 | 32’55.733 | 16.489 | 0.602 | ||
| 15 | 51 | Irina Sidorkova | 16 | 32’56.346 | 17.102 | 0.613 | ||
| 16 | 17 | Ayla Agren | 16 | 33’09.467 | 30.223 | 13.121 | ||
| 17 | 22 | Belén García | 15 | 30’52.092 | 1 Lap | 1 Lap | ||
| dnf | 54 | Miki Koyama | 8 | 16’32.116 | 8 Laps | 7 Laps |
Championship Standings
| Pos | Driver | Points | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alice Powell | 54 | ||||||||
| 2 | Jamie Chadwick | 48 | ||||||||
| 3 | Sarah Moore | 36 | ||||||||
| 4 | Fabienne Wohlwend | 34 | ||||||||
| 5 | Emma Kimilainen | 27 | ||||||||
| 6 | Irina Sidorkova | 22 | ||||||||
| 7 | Nerea Martí | 22 | ||||||||
| 8 | Belén García | 14 | ||||||||
| 9 | Bruna Tomaselli | 10 | ||||||||
| 10 | Miki Koyama | 10 | ||||||||
| 11 | Abbie Eaton | 10 | ||||||||
| 12 | Beitske Visser | 8 | ||||||||
| 13 | Abbi Pulling | 4 | ||||||||
| 14 | Gosia Rdest | 2 | ||||||||
| 15 | Ayla Agren | 1 | ||||||||
| 16 | Jessica Hawkins | 1 | ||||||||
| 17 | Vicky Piria | |||||||||
| 18 | Marta Garcia | |||||||||
| 19 | Sabre Cook |
