Nerea Marti Takes Pole Position for Race 1 in Miami

After a highly-anticipated return of W Series‘ third season, the Miami double-header will take place this weekend at the Miami International Autodrome. W Series will campaign its longest race calendar this year with 10 races at eight Formula One supported Grand Prix weekends, with new broadcast partnerships Sky Sports and ESPN showing live footage.

Spanish driver Nerea Marti set the fastest lap time at the Miami circuit of 1:56:915. She will start in front of two-time champion Jamie Chadwick and Bristol Street Motors driver Alice Powell for the season’s first race.

Jenner Racing’s Chadwick was less than one tenth of a second behind the Spanish racing driver after a late collision by Fabienne Wohlwend brought out a red flag with 29 seconds of the session remaining, resulting in the session ending early as she made contact with a wall. Alice Powell, who set the fastest time in yesterdays practice session will start on the second row ahead of Emma Kimiläinen.

The walls and lack of grip out on the track meant that drivers had very small margins for errors. Pole sitter Nerea Marti had a close call with the wall earlier in the session, as Chloe Chambers also span at the entry to the chicane on Turn 14 whilst the other drivers pitted. This caused a four-minute delay in the session but Chambers managed to finish 11th, being the fastest of the five new drivers making their debut in Miami this weekend.

After the red flag, Marti set the fastest lap by seven one hundredths of a second, ahead of Jamie Chadwick who improved from three tenths behind to three tenths ahead. 2021 runner up Alice Powell was showing great pace, being two tenths up on the pole lap time set by Nerea Marti, however due to the incident could not finish her lap and will start in third position for the opening race.

Drivers were allocated two sets of tyres, set two to be used for race one of the double-header and set three for race two. The first race will take place at 14:30 ET on Saturday 7 May 2022 and race two on Sunday 8 May 2022 at 10:35 ET.

After her maiden pole position, Nerea Martí said, “I’m super happy as this is my first pole position in W Series and it’s my goal to win.”

“It’s a fast track and it’s difficult so I was nervous. At the beginning of qualifying, it was a bit difficult as I didn’t find the right feeling and the track was very different to how it was in the practice session yesterday.”

“After my first run I finally focused again and did an out lap. I was very calm, to be honest, thinking about the race and where I could improve.”

The qualifying times and grid for race one: