While Jamie Chadwick, the recent winner of the Indy NXT race, is hoping to ride in an IndyCar for the 2025 season, he knows that being promoted won’t be simple.
Before the 2023 IndyCar season, Jamie Chadwick made the switch from European single-seater racing to American single-seater racing, joining Michael Andretti’s Indy NXT squad as the No. 28 driver full-time.
She stayed with Andretti Global in 2024, and a little over a month later, she won at Road America to become the first female winner in the series since 2010, having finished in third place at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway road course.
With five straight top 10 results in an Indianapolis NXT series that has been filled to capacity with full-time entries, she has recently moved up to a respectable fifth place in the championship standings.
The 26-year-old British driver has already matched or surpassed her best finish of sixth place at Portland International Raceway a year ago on three occasions this year, and she has long been considering the possibility of moving up to IndyCar in 2025. She joins Ana Beatriz and Pippa Mann on the short list of female Indy NXT race winners.
Chadwick may have other options on the IndyCar grid next year, even though Andretti Global’s roster is set with Colton Herta, Kyle Kirkwood, and Marcus Ericsson. The team hasn’t indicated that it wants to go back to four cars after cutting back to three this year for the first time since they won the 2012 championship with Ryan Hunter-Reay.
She hopes to get the better of him.
Chadwick is aware that obtaining a seat won’t be simple given the caliber of drivers in the series right now and the lengthy list of gifted drivers who are linked to rides each year but don’t finish up competing, but she hasn’t let that stop her from concentrating.
“You see the drivers who are already inside, but you also see the drivers who are ringing the doorbell. Although it won’t be simple, trying to reserve a spot for the following year is undoubtedly the aim.
Given her experience racing road courses, Chadwick isn’t particularly well-known for her oval racing abilities. After all, she won her first race at Road America last month. Nevertheless, she qualified on the second row in third place for her first oval start of the year at Iowa Speedway, where she finished in seventh.
She only had five top 10 finishes in her rookie season last year, when she finally placed 12th in the championship standings. This was her sixth top 10 finish of the season.
She has experience racing on road courses, but she is excited about the upcoming oval races. There will be three events featuring just left turns in the season’s final four.
Regarding her work in Iowa, Chadwick stated, “Yeah, it’s good in that sense.” “I believe there is some uncertainty heading into the year-end ovals. It resembles a season divided into two parts. You have the street tracks that we’ve had up to this point, the road courses that I know better, and then we have the ovals portion of the season.
“We had a strong run [at Iowa], but I didn’t know how we’re going to necessarily fare on the ovals, so yeah, to have a strong qualifying performance and then, in my opinion, be disappointed with coming seventh I think is a really positive thing, and I think it puts us in a good place for the rest of the year, especially as a team.”
The remaining four races of the season are oval races at Nashville Superspeedway and Milwaukee Mile, two new tracks for this year; she finished in 12th place at World Wide Technology Raceway at Gateway last year.
“I’m excited to see what we can do now for the remainder of the year because I think we’ve made a huge step on the ovals.”
Between the races at Gateway and Milwaukee, the only other event left on the program for this year is set to take place at the Portland International Raceway road course.
Even after switching to Indy NXT a year ago, Chadwick continues to participate in European racing. The three-time champion of the W Series is still a development driver for the Williams Formula 1 team, although her main responsibility now is to train the all-female F1 Academy.
She said, “Yeah, I’m still involved with Williams.” “My role with them is actually primarily looking after Lia Block, who is their driver in F1 Academy, so of course, having competed in W Series, there are a few similarities to now what she’s going through, so I guess a slight mentorship role is what I have, trying to help her in this transition.”
The only driver to win a W Series title is Chadwick, who did so three times (in 2019, 2021, and 2022). In those three seasons, she only finished off the podium three times and won eleven of the twenty-one races that were held.
With three straight top 10 results, including a peak finish of sixth in Spain, Lia, the 17-year-old daughter of the late rally hero Ken Block, has gone from last position all the way up to 11th in the F1 Academy standings, demonstrating clearly how effective the mentoring is.