The all-female W Series seems to have hit the end of the road with conformation that the championship has been formally placed into administration.
The W Series was formed in 2019 as a junior championship alongside DTM exclusively for women racers. Britain's Jamie Chadwick won the inaugural season, and went on to repeat her success in 2021 after a hiatus in 2020 due to COVID.
Chadwick completed a hat-trick of titles in 2022 when the series ended its season early, after seven races which were held as support events at F1 weekends at Miami, Barcelona, Silverstone, Paul Ricard, Hungary and Singapore.
The final three races due for the Circuit of the Americas in the US and the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico were all cancelled.
In all there were 22 W Series races, with Alice Powell, Beitske Visser, Emma Kimiläinen and Marta Garcia also emerging victorious. Visser was the final winner in Singapore in October.
At the time, series CEO Catherine Bond Muir said that she was hopeful of securing backing that would allow the series to continue. However, plans for a fourth championship have remained conspicuous by their absence.
Now Kevin Ley and Henry Shinners of Evelyn Partners LLP have been appointed joint administrators of the series, and expressed regret to all those affected by the news.
“The news will be upsetting for the company’s employees and drivers together with the worldwide supporters of the championship,” Ley acknowledged.
“The company had been unable to commit to the 2023 race season due to its liquidity position," he confirmed.
"The directors had been in discussions with various parties to provide additional funding together with a potential sale of the business. Unfortunately, these discussions did not progress.”
The administrators pledged to “explore all available options to allow the W Series to restart in the future,” according to Shinners.
“We are seeking expressions of interest in the business and assets of the company. We would ask that any interest is registered with us as quickly as possible," he added.
In fact it appears that Bond Muir was by now the only remaining member of staff, and it appears unlikely that the W Series will survive in any form.
“Staff had been made redundant or had left the business before our appointment and it has unfortunately been necessary to make the remaining staff member redundant," Shinners acknowledged.
"The joint administrators will be looking to support any staff impacted by the administration, given the financial position of the company, with making and progressing any claims with the Redundancy Payments Office.”
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Formula 1 has already launched a new junior championship for female racers called the F1 Academy.
It has held three of its seven triple-header race weekends planned for this season at Red Bull Ring, Valencia and Barcelona with further races planned for Zandvoort, Monza and Paul Ricard.
Marta Garcia and Amna Al Qubaisi have both won three races for Prema and MP Motorsport respectively. Other winners include Bianca Bustamante (Prema), Emely de Heus (MP) and Léna Buhler (ART).
The final F1 Academy race weekend of this year will be as a support event at the United States GP at COTA in October. All of next year's F1 Academy events will be on Grand Prix programmes.
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