A racing driver’s street to Method 1 is tough and dear. Almost each driver on the junior ladder has to pay their groups to compete, and the overwhelming majority of drivers are additionally male. W Sequence aimed to flip the script by recruiting a area of drivers to compete in a fully-funded championship for a $1.5 million prize purse. Nonetheless, the ladies’s-only sequence bumped into monetary difficulties which reduce its 2022 season quick and led to the group’s chapter early this month. Now, a number of drivers have acknowledged that they haven’t obtained any prize cash for final season.

Alice Powell and Abbi Pulling confirmed to TopGear.com that they didn’t obtain any prize cash for his or her ends in the 2022 season. Powell is owed $125,000 for her third-place end within the championship. Pulling is owed $100,000 after she secured fourth within the standings. TopGear.com additionally experiences that Jamie Chadwick hasn’t been paid $500,000 for profitable her third consecutive W Sequence championship. Different drivers have been hesitant to talk out worrying that it might injury their future profession prospects in motorsports.

W Sequence entered administration in the UK earlier this month, an insolvency process much like chapter in america. There’s a search underway to discover a potential purchaser to salvage the distinctive competitors. The sale proceeds would then be used to pay collectors, presumably together with the drivers. Once more, that might solely occur if a purchaser is discovered and it’s determined to pay out prize cash.

Whereas the prospect of W Sequence being revived is interesting to its devoted core of followers, the competitors is flawed as a business product. The competitors aimed to capitalize on the swell of latest younger F1 followers and funding into ladies’s sports activities whereas in some way overcoming the plain shortfalls of its place within the racing panorama.

W Sequence was overtly a developmental sequence. It was positioned to develop and advance feminine drivers up the ladder to Method 1. It additionally wanted to be a pretty product from tv broadcasters and company sponsors, however the drivers are probably the most marketable facet of any racing sequence. How was W Sequence alleged to be financially sustainable whereas hoping its greatest expertise moved on towards F1 as shortly as doable?

The demise of W Sequence isn’t shocking, however it’s undoubtedly disappointing. Method 1 has created F1 Academy to fill the void, however it was initially supposed to function a cost-controlled feeder class for W Sequence. Driver improvement isn’t financially self-sustaining, and the demographic make-up of the drivers who make it to F1 gained’t change except vested pursuits on the prime wish to spend the cash to vary it.