W Series racer Jessica Hawkins has joined the Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team as a Driver Ambassador, and the twenty-six-year-old is eager to work alongside the current line-up.
Hawkins has been competed in a number of categories across the United Kingdom, including the British Touring Car Championship, Formula Ford and Formula 4, and also has competed in the Jaguar I-Pace eTrophy and Mini Challenge UK Pro Class.
She is also a fabled stunt driver for Fast and Furious Live, and her talents will also be noticed when she does some of the stunts in the latest James Bond film, No Time to Die, is released later this year.
“I am incredibly excited to be joining Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team as its new Driver Ambassador, and I am really looking forward to working with Lance Stroll, Sebastian Vettel, Nico Hülkenberg and the rest of the team,” said Hawkins. “In fact, although it will surely be a hell of a lot of hard work, it is a dream come true for me. Besides, I am definitely not afraid of hard work.
“I also want to pay tribute and say thank you to W Series, which is a brilliant championship without which I would simply never have got this unbelievable chance to work within such a great Formula One team.
“I will continue to race with W Series this year, and, despite my super-exciting new position with Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One™ Team, I will remain fully focused on driving my heart out in an effort to score as many points in the 2021 W Series championship as I possibly can.
“I would particularly like to say a big thanks to W Series’ three most senior people, Sean Wadsworth, Catherine Bond Muir and Dave Ryan. Without their amazing efforts to put W Series on the motorsport map in such a brilliant way and in such a short time, female drivers like me would never have found our way onto the radar screens of the likes of Otmar Szafnauer, to whom I should also say a massive thank you.”
Otmar Szafnauer, the Team Principal and CEO of Aston Martin, says Hawkins has not had it easy in her career to date, but her ‘determination to beat the odds’ is admirable.
Hawkins will compete in front of her new employers in eight W Series events in 2021, having finished inside the top twelve in season one back in 2019, and Szafnauer is expecting her to fit well into the Aston Martin set-up this year.
“We are delighted to welcome Jessica Hawkins as Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One Team’s new Driver Ambassador,” said Szafnauer. “She has not had it easy in her racing career so far, always having to fight for drives as all young drivers do, especially young women, and her determination to beat the odds is as obvious as it is admirable.
“Jessica acquitted herself well in the inaugural season of W Series, 2019, finishing in the top 12 in the series’ standings, which success allowed her to progress to the next season of W Series, which will be run on the support card of eight Formula One Grands Prix this year.
“We are sure that Jessica will work very well with everyone in our team, across a variety of disciplines, both at Grands Prix and in between them, and also with our many partners, including but not limited to our title partner Cognizant, BWT, SentinelOne, Peroni Libera 0.0%, Crypto.com and many more.”
