W Series is a championship that has an aim to create opportunities and inspire young girls in motorsport. The upcoming season sees the Series’ youngest ever driver as it announces 16-year-old Juju Noda will race in 2022.
Juju Noda, who dreams of becoming the first-ever female Formula 1 World Champion, comes into W Series already breaking records. She started karting at just three years old and by the time she was nine, had tested a Formula 4 car. She went on to break more records at 11-years-old when she drove a Formula 3 car for the first time at the Okayama International Circuit, Japan.
The-16-year-old follows in the footsteps of her father, Hideki Noda who competed in Formula 1 during the 1990s. She later moved to Denmark with her father to make her racing debut at the 2020 Danish Formula 4 Championship. So far in her racing career, Noda has taken 5 pole positions, 12 podiums and 3 race wins. She will join the rest of the all-female grid in the hopes of becoming 2022’s W Series World Champion.
Noda will join eight other newly selected drivers in securing a seat alongside the top eight qualifiers of the 2021 drivers standings. She took part in pre-season tests at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Barcelona and the Inde Motorsports Ranch in Arizona, where W Series Racing Director Dave Ryan and his team decided who would take the 2022 seats.
“As the profile of W Series grows, the talent pool and standard of our driver line-up increases, and the 2022 W Series grid is the strongest yet,” Ryan explained.
“This year, we expanded our driver search and testing programme by staging pre-season tests in both the USA and Europe, and that decision has paid dividends. The class of 2022 represents 10 different countries, and more than a quarter of the grid are new talents making their W Series debut.”
“The five rookies are well-prepared and join a group of proven W Series performers who know what it’s all about. In the spirit of W Series, they will all drive each other forwards.”
