Wrapping up its second year on track (its 2020 season having been cancelled due to Covid-19), the W Series is headed to the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas on October 23-24 for a double-header race event. Best of all, the two preseason favorites, Alice Powell and Jamie Chadwick, are tied in points for the championship. 

Below is a primer on the W Series, an overview on how it’s breaking ground for women in racing, and what to expect in this suspense-filled season finale.

Why the W Series?

Motorsport is one of the hardest sporting arenas to break into if one’s path isn’t well paved by family legacy and financial backing. It has been dubbed by critics as the “billionaires boy’s club,” which partially explains what has made Lewis Hamilton’s Formula 1 career so compelling. The irrefutable GOAT of F1, and the only Black F1 driver ever, Hamilton broke into the sport as an outsider while his father worked multiple jobs and provided the mechanical work to support his son’s natural gift for racing. 

The number of women who’ve successfully broken into the ranks is similarly few and far between. Out of 900+ Formula 1 drivers who’ve ever lined up on the grid for a Grand Prix event, only two of them have been women (Maria Teresa de Filippis in 1958 and Lella Lombardi in 1975 and 1976). For Catherine Bond Muir, a British lawyer and corporate financial advisor, those numbers were so bleak, she felt compelled to take matters into her own hands by founding the W Series, an international all-female driver racing league.

Some don’t like the idea of a segregated series for women and believe efforts should be focused on bringing more women up through the standard pathways of racing. Pippa Mann, a British IndyCar race driver, has argued, “We [women] grew up dreaming of winning races, and winning championships, against everyone—the same as every male racer does. We did not grow up dreaming of being segregated, and winning the girl’s only cup.”

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For Bond Muir, the fact that the number of women in single-seater motor-racing series globally was on a downward trend convinced her that the existing pathways for women weren’t working. In a sport where individual sponsorship is fundamental, there is a dismal number of companies willing to spend big money on female drivers who are as yet unproven against male drivers on the biggest stage. And without preemptive funding, the opportunity to go out and prove themselves doesn’t exist for these drivers. 

This is where the W Series comes in. With a structure that covers all expenses for drivers, the financial barriers into the sport are made null and void, allowing the W Series to showcase the best female drivers from all over the globe, racing some of the fastest machines on the most iconic racetracks.

The W Series Structure

Unlike Formula 1, where a driver’s individual financial sponsorships are a major factor in being selected for one of the coveted 20 driver seats, the athletes in the W Series are selected solely on their racing ability. Applicants are put through rigorous on-track testing, simulator assessments, technical engineering and fitness evaluations, and then the top 18 make the cut. 

Another critical difference from F1 is that every driver in the W Series competes in an identical race car (the Tatuus T-318 Formula 3 car). In F1, there are certain parameters for the vehicles, but the ten teams are allowed to customize much of the car, which results in the wealthiest teams dominating for years on end as they pour money into either buying or creating the latest and greatest technology.

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During this second season of the W series, even though they are in identical vehicles, the drivers are divided into nine teams sponsored by partner companies. A team championship based on overall points accumulated by each team’s two drivers will be debuted in 2022. Currently, there is a $1.5 million allotment for the individual driver championship. The overall winner will be awarded $500K with the remainder trickling down from second to eighteenth place. 

Another new aspect for this 2021 season is that all eight races are being held alongside Formula 1 Grand Prix events, giving these women the grandest of stages to showcase their abilities.  

The 2021 W Series Championship

With six of eight total races completed, the top two drivers, Alice Powell and Jamie Chadwick, are deadlocked in points at 109 apiece (a 1st place finish is worth 25 points, 2nd gets 18, 3rd gets 15, and so on). The two Brits have been neck and neck throughout the series, trading the top podium back and forth with only one other driver, Emma Kimilainen of Finland, snatching a single race win in between. 

Twenty-four-year-old Chadwick is the reigning W Series champion from 2019 and has been a steadily rising star, coming up through karting and junior racing programs in the UK and then moving on the Formula 3 series in both her home country and Asia. During the inaugural W Series season, she was also named a Williams development driver for the F1 team.

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Powell’s path to competitive racing has been a bit more stop and go depending on when funding has been available. After several years competing in Formula Renault series in the UK and abroad, Powell (28) had been out of competitive racing since 2015 and was doing building renovation work for her father when the W Series opportunity arose. 

“Racing has been the sport of privileged billionaires for years and it’s hard for women to get sponsorship. Despite writing hundreds of letters to businesses and race teams my funding dried up in 2015,” she once vented. “Then W Series came along and changed the game. I had just been unblocking a urinal when I got the call.”

With three 1st-place finishes to Chadwick’s two, Powell currently has the upper hand to edge out Chadwick for the overall title if things remain equal after the final two races. With 50 first place points up for grabs between the final two races, Kimilainen is also still within striking distance of a come from behind victory. And in racing it doesn’t take much—a tire puncture, engine issue, rainy weather—to drastically change the fate of title contenders.

For Bond Muir, she couldn’t have hoped for more as her brainchild heads into a suspenseful finish of its sophomore season: back-to-back races at the Circuit of the Americas to determine who walks away the champion. 

“If you had told me then that we would stage two races on the same weekend at one of F1’s flagship events in just our second season, I would have pinched myself,” Bond Muir said. 

“It will be a fitting way to end our breathless and action-packed eight-race season and promises to be a very special weekend as we celebrate everything that W Series stands for and the giant strides we have made since launching three years ago.”

Stakes are sky-high for Wednesday night's Cy-Hawk Series clash, as undefeated No. 10 Iowa State welcomes unbeaten No. 11 Iowa to Ames for the highest-ranked NCAA women's basketball matchup in the cross-state rivalry's history.

"[If] you grew up in the state, just there's nothing like it," Iowa head coach Jan Jensen said of the historic series. "You've dreamed, you've watched those big football matchups when you're little, you watched the basketball games when you were little, and to get to be in one — boy, it doesn't get much better."

"[It's] one of those things where it truly is a rivalry, because teams [go] back and forth and have their streaks and wins and losses," echoed Cyclones boss Bill Fennelly.

The red-hot Hawkeyes enter Wednesday's game with the head-to-head advantage having won three straight against the Cyclones — and eight of the last nine in the series.

That said, the Cyclones have the nation's leading scorer on their side, with junior center Audi Crooks's 27.6 points per game showcasing unmatched efficiency in the 2025/26 NCAA season.

"Audi's tough," Jensen said about the Iowa State star. "She's just really, really incredible…. When you let her get it, she's pretty accurate."

How to watch Iowa vs. Iowa State in the 2025 Cy-Hawk Series

The No. 11 Hawkeyes will visit the No. 10 Cyclones in the 2025 edition of the Cy-Hawk Series at 7 PM ET on Wednesday, with live coverage airing on ESPN.

The Washington Spirit are all in on forward Trinity Rodman, with club GM Nathan Minion telling reporters that the 2025 NWSL runners-up are working "pretty much daily" to re-sign the free agent despite salary cap concerns.

"I think everyone's trying to work together to get a deal in place," said Minion, acknowledging that the NWSL and the Spirit are actively working with each other to retain the 23-year-old star. "[We're] trying to figure this out and trying to get a resolution that can hopefully keep Trinity here with us for a long time."

"The reality is our current salary cap structure — it was built for a different era of women's soccer," said the DC club's recently hired president of soccer operations Haley Carter. "We're going to need mechanisms that allow NWSL clubs to compete for not only players from overseas, but our own players."

The NWSL vetoed the multi-million dollar offer from the Washington Spirit to keep Rodman last week, with the NWSLPA subsequently filing a grievance claiming the league violated the USWNT attacker's free agency rights by blocking the deal.

"These are nuanced conversations, and I would love to just toss the salary cap out the window and pay the players," said Carter. "But we also have to appreciate that, pragmatically, it isn't always payroll that's going to keep our athletes here. It's investment in other things as well."

"We are going to have to start getting creative, I believe, because it's bigger than just one team," continued Carter. "It's bigger than just one player. It's about the league's ability to keep its best players in this league as we continue to grow."

The NWSL transfer and hiring market is ramping up, with both the 14 existing clubs and two incoming expansion teams busy bolstering their 2026 ranks just weeks into the offseason.

Last week, Bay FC announced that England U-23 head coach Emma Coates will become the 2024 expansion club's second-ever manager, with fellow England youth national team and WSL staffer Gemma Davies joining Coates's NWSL crew as an assistant coach.

"I'm truly honored and super excited to build on the strong foundations that have already been established and to implement a clear identity both on and off the pitch," Coates said in Thursday's statement. "[Bay FC] shares my passion for people, performance, and culture, which I believe are fundamental to sustained success."

"Emma is not only an excellent coach, but she also has a proven track record of developing players to compete at the highest levels of both the domestic and international game," remarked Bay Collective CEO Kay Cossington. "Emma has consistently demonstrated an ability to bring players and teams to the next level with clarity, care and purpose. She understands what it takes to build environments where people thrive and perform at their best."

"Bay FC is gaining not only a great coach, but also someone that understands women's football and our athletes inside and out."

While Coates will wrap up her nearly three years at England's U-23 helm to join Bay FC in the coming days, three other NWSL teams are still searching for permanent sideline leaders this offseason, as the Kansas City Current, North Carolina Courage, and Portland Thorns continue to conduct coaching searches.

The Thorns joined the leaderless ranks in late November, parting ways with manager Rob Gale following the team's NWSL semifinals exit.

Reigning WNBA champion A'ja Wilson picked up yet another honor this week, as TIME crowned the four-time league MVP its 2025 Athlete of the Year on Tuesday.

The Las Vegas Aces center became the first player in WNBA history to win a championship, Finals MVP, league MVP, and Defensive Player of the Year in the same season, with the 29-year-old sweeping the league's awards this year.

"This year, I collected everything," Wilson said in her TIME interview. "I don't really talk much sh-t — I mean crap. I kind of let my game do it."

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Wilson described the Aces' midseason slump as a focusing agent in her 2025 TIME Athlete of the Year feature, with the skid launching the team on course to their third championship win in four years.

"I think 2025 was a wake-up call that I needed, to let me know that I can't be satisfied with anything," said Wilson. "There's somebody out there that's going to try to take your job. You need to make sure you're great at it, every single day."

Wilson also spoke to the strained relationship between players and WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert, whose leadership came under fire in October as CBA negotiations kicked into high gear.

"I only know Cathy by when she hands me trophies," Wilson said. "If that's her true self, thank you for showing that. Thank you for saying those things. Because now we see you for who you are, and now we're about to work even harder at this negotiation."

With the latest CBA extension expiring on January 9th, Wilson promised that the players are all-in on negotiations through the holiday season.

“All of us are going to be at the table, and we're not moving until we get exactly what we want."