The W Series, motor racing’s female-only championship, will be part of next year’s British Grand Prix weekend. The series recently announced it would dovetail with a number of Formula 1 races in 2021.

An eight-race calendar has been confirmed, starting in France on 26 June and concluding in Mexico on 30 October. The British round at Silverstone will be staged on 17 July, a day before the grand prix.

Britain’s Jamie Chadwick won the inaugural W Series title last year but the 2020 championship was postponed following the outbreak of coronavirus. Races had been scheduled for the undercard of the US and Mexican Grands Prix before both events were cancelled. It is 44 years since a female driver, the Italian Lella Lombardi, last took part in a Formula 1 race.

“The prospect of seeing W Series race alongside Formula 1, the world’s premier motor racing series, has become even more tantalising,” said W Series chief executive Catherine Bond Muir. “The eight races will allow our fast and fearless female racing drivers to showcase their skills on some of the world’s most iconic racing circuits, in Europe and the Americas, and literally follow in the tyre tracks of the greatest racing drivers in the world today.”

W Series race schedule

26 June: Le Castellet, France

3 July: Spielberg, Austria

17 July: Silverstone, UK

31 July: Budapest, Hungary

28 August: Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium

4 September: Zandvoort, Netherlands

23 October: Austin, USA

30 October: Mexico City, Mexico