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Powell and Chadwick neck-and-neck as W Series joins Formula 1 in Texas

A scheduled W Series race in Singapore this weekend is in doubt. (Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)

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.”

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.

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.

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.”

USC’s McKenzie Forbes: From Gap Year to the NCAA Tournament

As part of our 1-v-1 video series, USC’s India Otto sat down to interview her teammate McKenzie Forbes. 

Here are five things to know from our conversation with the graduate transfer from Folsom, California.

#1 Inspired by USC’s Head Coach, Lindsay Gottlieb, McKenzie wants to be a basketball coach or work in the front office in the future.

When weighing in on what makes a good coach, McKenzie said x’s and o’s are important but “Coaching is a lot of relationship managing and people managing. I think you have to be a good people person and be able to build those relationships, but also in that same breath, you can’t be afraid to have people dislike you in moments. I think that’s a big part of leadership.”

#2 McKenzie says the trajectory of her career changed when she made the decision to transfer from Cal to Harvard.

 In order to transfer, she was forced to take a gap year and spend a lot of time in the gym. “I completely transformed my body and, going into the Harvard season, felt like I was a completely different player. Going to Harvard and playing in a more mid-major conference, I had the ball in my hands a lot more than I might have if I transferred to another Power 5. It really developed other parts of my game.”

#3 How does McKenzie think USC will do in the Women’s College Basketball Tournament?

“I’m not going to give a typical interview answer. I want a Final Four. We have that potential and capability. Like why not? Why not us? I think we have all the pieces.”

#4 Her older brother, Marcus, was her biggest mentor growing up.

“He was basically my trainer from Elementary school on until he went to college.”

#5 Fun facts about Forbes:

She can juggle and she was the quarterback of her Pop Warner football team. “I was slow but I could throw it!”

Watch the full conversation on the Just Women’s Sports YouTube channel.

Christen Press back training with Angel City FC

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - OCTOBER 15: Christen Press #23 of Angel City FC waves to fans following a game between the Portland Thorns and Angel City FC at BMO Stadium on October 15, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Katharine Lotze/Getty Images)

Christen Press continues to inch her way back to a return, having returned to training with her club team Angel City. 

Angel City FC coach Becki Tweed said on Wednesday that Press is back with the team full-time as she continues to make her way back from an ACL injury. While she’s still working on rehab, her being back with the team gives staff a better picture of her progress. 

"Christen [Press] is back with us full time which is amazing,” she said. “Having her in and around the team every day, continuing to work hard on rehab ... she's in a space where being in with the team is really important to her and her progression as well.”

The status update comes days after Press posted videos to social media that featured her doing lateral movement in cleats on grass. 

“Look out world she’s on the move !” Press captioned it. 

Press has been sidelined with an ACL injury since 2022, which caused her to miss the 2023 World Cup. She’s since had four separate surgeries to help repair her ACL.

Press told The Athletic a month ago that she’s been “relentless” in her optimism with her recovery despite it being a “slow process.”

“I have a bit of relentless optimism,” she told The Athletic. “I never, ever doubted that I would make it back on any of the timelines I’ve been on."

"Every single time I’ve heard, ‘You have to have surgery,’ I’m completely shocked,” she said. “When somebody asks me how it’s going, I’m like, ‘It’s going great. And it was going great every time. So I don’t know what to tell you anymore!’”

Sophia Smith re-signs with Portland on record deal

(Troy Wayrynen-USA TODAY Sports)

Sophia Smith is now the NWSL’s highest-paid player. 

The Portland Thorns announced on Wednesday that they have signed Smith to a new contract through the 2025 season, with an option for 2026. While the terms of the deal were not disclosed, the team did reveal that Smith is now the highest-paid player in the league on an annual basis.

It’s the latest in what has been a series of record-breaking contracts in the NWSL offseason. 

Chicago Red Stars forward Mallory Swanson, Bay FC forward Racheal Kundananji, and Orlando Pride forward Barbra Banda all signed multi-year deals worth between $2 million and $2.5 million in total. While Smith’s contract is shorter and not worth as much over the long-term, the annual worth is higher. 

“We are over the moon to have Soph commit again to the Thorns. She is a proven, world-class talent and one that we are excited to have contribute to the team’s continued success,” said head coach Mike Norris in a statement. “We look forward to working with her in a Thorns jersey as she continues to shine as one of the top strikers in the world.”

In just four seasons in the NWSL, Smith has led the Thorns to five trophies – including the 2022 NWSL championship – while winning league and championship MVP in 2022. In 61 appearances with Portland, she has 34 goals – including a brace to start this season against Kansas City. 

She’s also a member of the USWNT, having scored 16 goals in 44 international appearances.  Set to become a free agent at the end of this season, she told ESPN she “thought of all the options” but ultimately Portland felt like the right decision.

"There is no place like Portland," Smith said in a small roundtable interview that included ESPN. "I don't believe there's an environment like Portland to play in and it's a city that's so special to me and a city that I feel like I've grown up in almost and become who I am."

She also told ESPN that the team’s new ownership “changes everything.” The club is now led by the Bhathal family, who bought the club after Merritt Paulson was forced to sell it following his part in the NWSL’s abuse scandal. 

"Since I've been here there has been a lot of things going on with this club -- a lot of not-great things going on with this club -- and I have just been waiting for some stability and some reassurance that this club is headed in the right direction, and the Bhathal family coming in is doing exactly that, if not more,” Smith said. 

"Their vision for this club is so exciting, and you can just tell how passionate they are about making this what it should be and continuing to push the standard in women's soccer globally.”

Caitlin Clark offered $5 million to compete in Ice Cube’s league

IOWA CITY, IOWA- MARCH 25: Guard Caitlin Clark #22 of the Iowa Hawkeyes celebrates as time runs out in the second half against the West Virginia Mountaineers during their second round match-up in the 2024 NCAA Division 1 Women's Basketball Championship at Carver-Hawkeye Arena on March 25, 2024 in Iowa City, Iowa. (Photo by Matthew Holst/Getty Images)

Caitlin Clark has been offered $5 million to play in Ice Cube's Big3 league, he confirmed on social media Wednesday after the offer leaked.

"We intended the offer to remain private while Caitlin Clark plays for the championship," Ice Cube wrote on social media. "But I won't deny what's now already out there: BIG3 made a historic offer to Caitlin Clark. Why wouldn't we? Caitlin is a generational athlete who can achieve tremendous success in the BIG3."

While there has yet to be a women's player in the league, both Nancy Lieberman and Lisa Leslie have been part of the league as coaches and won championships.

"The skeptics laughed when we made Nancy Lieberman the first female coach of a men's pro team, and she won the championship in her first year," Ice Cube continued. "Then Lisa Leslie won it all in year two. With our offer, Caitlin Clark can make history and break down even more barriers for women athletes."

Ice Cube, whose name is O’Shea Jackson, says that the offer was made with the intention that Clark be able to compete in the WNBA “offseason.” Clark is largely expected to be the No. 1 overall pick in the WNBA draft in April. But it’s unclear how the scheduling of the two leagues would work. 

The 2024 Big3 season is set to tip off on June 15, with 10 games spanning through mid-August. The WNBA regular season, meanwhile, begins on May 14 and ends on Sept. 19.

On “The Pat McAfee Show” on Wednesday, Jackson said that the league has yet to hear back from Clark. 

“We just need an answer, as soon as they are ready to give it to us,” he said. “It’s always 50-50 till we get a no. At the end of the day, it’s a generous offer.”

The offer – as well as the confusion on Jackson’s part about the timing of the WNBA season – caused some current WNBA players to react. 

"It's funny cause I be seeing his son at W games.. they don't talk?" wrote former No. 1 pick Rhyne Howard

"So no other women's basketball player has came to mind in the last 7 years?" wrote Lexie Brown, adding that she'd support if Ice Cube wanted to build a women's iteration of the league. She later discussed it on the Gils Arena Show, noting that his reasoning of wanting to “uplift and support WNBA players and women athletes” is a “cop out.”

Kalani Brown, meanwhile, told Clark to "take that money" and start a women's Big3.

WNBA salaries has been a talking point in recent months as more collegiate stars declare for the league. WNBA stars have often made more money playing abroad than they have in the WNBA. Clark is expected to be the No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft on April 15, with a rookie salary of $76,535 for lottery draft picks (Nos. 1-4) that rises to $97,582 by her fourth season. But she also has an NIL valuation of almost $3.5 million.

Diana Taurasi famously skipped the 2015 WNBA season at the request of her Russian club, who paid her more to sit out than she would have made in the W. Her contract with the club was reportedly near $1.5 million per year.

Jackson also seemed to suggest that his league could be an alternative to going abroad

“America’s women athletes should not be forced to spend their off seasons playing in often dismal and dubious foreign countries just to make ends meet,” he wrote. Although it’s unclear whether or not the rapper intends to make offers to additional WNBA players. 

While the league does hold prioritization rules in its CBA, those typically apply only to players playing in overseas leagues. It’s unclear whether or not that would prevent Clark’s participation in the Big3 league.

WNBA players that don’t want to go overseas currently have the option of playing in Athletes Unlimited, which competes in the WNBA offseason.

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