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Jamie Chadwick is well on her way to winning her third W Series championship in 2022. Clive Rose/Getty Images

In the cutthroat world of junior series driving careers are put out long before they should. Women are more likely to work with lower budgets and less opportunities than their male counterparts.

Alice Powell said she didn't run out of talent when she was asked why she had taken an extended break from racing.

The drive to find a female driver capable of reaching Formula One seems stronger than ever, but the most proven woman driving in single seaters today can't seem to get out of the regional Formula 3 series

The W Series doesn't force the champ to move on. You can't come back after winning Formula 3 or Formula 2. It's a system that punishes talented drivers to a year making tea at the back of an F1 team's garage before a spot opens up for them to progress.

As a result of W Series' way of doing things, Chadwick has found herself competing for a third title. She heads into the summer break with a question mark over what she's going to do next. What will she do to make progress out of what's intended to be a stepping-stone championship?

Ahead of the break, he said his goal was to keep progressing. I want to go up. I know I need to perform this year, but I'm also focused on the future.

I'm looking at American opportunities and possibly Indy Lights as well, so anyfeeder series is the goal." All options are being explored. We've got a nice break after Budapest, so there's some time to understand what we're capable of and what the best opportunity is.

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It is clear that Chadwick cannot return for a fourth season in the W Series for the sake of the title. It's not clear where she'll go from here, having just turned 24 and with the professional part of her career out of reach.

Two women have driven in Formula 3 and Formula 2. During the 2020 season, Flrsch failed to score a point in the series.

The HWA Racelab car that Anthoine Hubert took to a race win before his tragic happened to be the one that Caldern had struggled with for the entire season. All stand-in drivers found a similar lack of performance in the same way that Caldern did.

David Coulthard was a founding member of W Series and More Than Equal, a programme to try to get a woman to F1. He said that she had to think about whether she could compete in F3 or F2.

David Coulthard told media before the British Grand Prix that motor racing should be a meritocracy. There are only a couple of teams that consistently win in Formula 2.

There is a way to get to F2 and there is also a way to get to F2 in the right car. Individual teams are the ones that matter. There are a number of considerations when trying to get a driver into a two-car team.

That might have been the reason why she didn't have an F3 drive. She had won back-to-back titles in the W Series and didn't want to go back. Her announcement that she was joining Jenner Racing for a third run in the championship was more defeated than most drivers' signing videos and she issued another, a few days later, assuring fans that she was trying to get to F3 but that things did not always work out.

Bruno said he didn't know why her deal fell through.

I don't understand why she wouldn't get a seat in Formula 3. There were teams that were prepared to take her. I'm not sure what happened at the end of the discussion with one team.

She would be ready for Formula 3.

Female drivers coming to F3 and F2 had to be able to qualify well enough to be at the front of the series. If you qualify 12th in F3 for the sprint race, you have a chance to score points that Flrsch missed out on.

"We need to prepare young female drivers to get to the level of Formula 3 with success, and with success it means that we need to be sure that they can qualify in the top 12," saidMichel. It will be counter productive if it is at the back of the grid.

There is no reason that a female driver can't achieve the same result as a male driver.

It's a major barrier to prepare. He has done more single-seater races than any other driver. Lando had done more before getting into an F2 car. She is inexperienced compared to her male peers.

Little girls don't get as much experience early on in sports fields where there is no gender segregation. It is easy to see the four-year gap between the two boys.

Having truly conquered W Series, Jamie Chadwick is ready to make the step up into Formula 3 or Formula 2. Clive Mason/Getty Images

W Series CEO Catherine Bond-Muir said that she didn't have to ask why she didn't reach the career highs of her male peers.

"If you look at our best driver at the moment, who is Jamie, and compare to her peers that are Lando and George, they are the same age, they meet socially with each other, they are all friends," said Bond-Muir. "If you compare the number of hours that the boys have raced from karting onwards and into the single-seater pyramid, they have had tens, if not hundreds, of times the number of hours in a car that Jamie has."

Jamie isn't competing on a level playing field just because he's experienced.

It's not just driving for herself. She would represent a major success for the W Series' programme if she got a ride in F3 or Indy Lights. awkward questions about whether the series is actually progressing women's careers or corralling them into a lower-category holding pattern inevitably have to be asked if she does not.

Coulthard said that the series had been pushed by the body of the sport.

The governing body was suggested that we should force them to spend their money on the next step. We don't force anyone to do anything that the boys aren't doing, or the men aren't doing.

Without a seat secured, he is still in that limbo. She has the added pressure of needing to make it work since she has the prize money lubricating a deal. She may find herself in a weaker position than her budget would suggest unless she gets the help she needs.

The costs are very high. Formula 2 is thought to cost as much as 6 million or more, depending on spare parts, and Formula 3 is thought to cost anywhere from 3 million to 5 million for a season. The W Series doesn't cost anything to compete in or pay its drivers, allowing most of them to concentrate on racing instead of working as stunt drivers or plumbing mates.

It will be a problem for her career if she doesn't get a seat. Women are at large in motor sport. She already carries a heavy reputation for her gender so it shouldn't be put on her. This needs to be looked at on a larger scale. A very notable woman's struggle to get up the ladder should be seen as a brutal example of how difficult it is for women to progress in motor sport.