Jamie Chadwick set herself an ambitious Formula 1 target after completing an Indy Lights test for the first time.
The Briton was in Florida on Wednesday for the rest at Sebring. She is currently assessing her options for next year, by which time she is highly likely to be a three-time W Series champion after dominating the competition this season.
Representing Jenner Racing, she was the pre-season favourite for the title having won the last two editions of the series. But not only has she put herself in prime position to do that, but she has done it with style – winning four of the five races so far and more than doubling the points total of her nearest rival, fellow Brit Alice Powell.
F1 remains Chadwick's ultimate goal, and she doesn't plan on waiting too long either. "I think my goal is definitely to try and make it within five years," she told reporters. "There's a lot I need to achieve in that time but my goal is still very much to try and go through the correct feeder series and have success in that to be in Formula 1 within five years."
Lella Lombardi was the last woman to start an F1 Grand Prix. That was 46 years ago, and F1 chief Stefano Domenicali has made it clear in recent times that it is unlikely another woman will make it to the series before the half-century milestone is reached.
"Realistically speaking, I don't see a girl in Formula One in the next five years unless something like a sort of meteorite comes into the earth. That is very unlikely," he said last month. "But we want to build up the right parameters with the right approach, step by step, for them to start to race against the guys at the right age and in the right car. That's what we're working on."
Asked for her reaction to those comments from F1's top dog, Chadwick said she would not be deterred from her goal and that, if nothing else, it made her all the more determined to prove Domenicali wrong. "I know that if I have success in the right feeder series than I'll be in Formula 1," she added.
"That's my goal at the moment, trying to do that and use the platforms I have... lean on the people that do believe in it and really do see it as being possible because there are those people out there. Even the likes of Andretti giving me the opportunity to test, they believe in it."
For now, she is open to what the next stage of her journey will hold for her. Chadwick explained: "Options are open. Formula 3 and Formula 2 and Indy Lights are kind of the options I've been looking at. Conversations are ongoing in Europe and America."
