W Series: Jess Hawkins moves step closer to F1 dream despite nearly quitting motorsport

Hawkins' career has been reignited in the all-female W Series

Jess Hawkins had effectively given up on a motorsport career two years ago.

Soul-destroying winters spent going around local businesses trying to unsuccessfully drum up sponsorship left her walking away from her dream of the upper echelons of racing instilled from the moment her eight-year-old self first sat in a go kart.

But the 24-year-old’s career has been reignited in the all-female W Series, and this weekend she lines up in race three of the nascent series in Misano.

She had been reluctant to apply for the series initially, the sponsorship rejections having left her in “a bad way”, not having to chase it acting as a weight off her shoulders.

Plus, she was still working in the industry as a stunt driver for the Fast and Furious live shows, for a company converting Formula 1 cars and starring in a music video for the Chemical Brothers.

And she said: “I also thought the idea of all females racing, what do I want to do that for? I want to race the men. But the more I heard about it the more I changed opinions.”

For Hawkins, it is a personal game changer but now one she sees massively impacting the wider motorsport world in years to come.

“Girls at a young age don’t see motorsport as a female sport,” she said. “They see it’s all men so we’re unlikely to get a female into F1 as we’re a minority. But this will change that. Within my generation, I think there will be a woman in F1. It might not be one of us 18 drivers but this will inspire a generation.”

Hawkins is not from typical racing stock. Her dad installs air-conditioning units in London while her mother works as an office assistant. Achieving the budget to race, highlights of which include being crowned British Karting Champion aged 12, was always a push.

The racing only came about by chance when, disillusioned by playing golf, she pestered her dad to allow her to try go karting at the neighbouring Sandown Park.

She clicked behind the wheel and likens herself to a female Max Verstappen: “I guess I’m a bit like him because I’m fiery. I’m not afraid to say what I’m thinking as he’s not, and I’m not here to make friends. So, if I’m annoyed I won’t try to hide it but I’m not an angry person.”

A sporty child, she never saw being a girl as limiting to her motorsport prospects and, if there were any negative comments, she either didn’t hear them or ignored them.

“Maybe when I started there was a bit of ‘she’s female, blah, blah, blah’,” she said, “but I won the British Karting Championships and was accepted, maybe even before that. Maybe it was tougher to be accepted but, once you’re in, you’re in.”

Like any racer, the goal remains the holy grail of F1, where she has dabbled partly in driving the Alfa Romeo on demo runs for the team at the Chinese Grand Prix.

“I stepped out of the garage and Martin Garrix was just there singing,” she said. “It was crazy, madness, and I was just thinking I’m going to send the car as sideways as possible and loved it.”

The list of surreal experiences continue, stunt driving across Europe for the Fast & Furious, including a sell-out crowd at the O2, a performance which she describes as “the closest thing to winning”.

And despite her relative racing inexperience to the rest of the grid, it is winning she aspires too. She talks of two races required to get up to speed and has ambitions to win the W Series in 2020 and topple her idol growing up, Alice Powell.

Prior to big races in her career, she has a tendency to stick a piece of paper on the kitchen wall with her pre-race aspirations written on. As a 12-year-old with a bedroom bedecked in pink but littered with memorabilia she would collect of broken bits from race crashes, it was the British Karting Championships but, for now, the wall is bare.

“I’ve not written anything,” she admitted. “It’s not that I’m not confident but I’m realistic. This year, I’ll do the best I can and then win it next year.”

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