Jamie Chadwick has been announced as the official reserve driver for Genesis Magma Racing’s Hypercar programme in the 2026 World Endurance Championship. Hyundai’s premium brand confirmed Chadwick will help develop the team’s first Hypercar, a role the 27-year-old described as an exciting next step in her career.
Chadwick becomes the first woman to hold a reserve driving role at Hypercar level in the WEC. She says the position offers both a technical development remit and a platform to push for a full-time Hypercar race seat in the future, calling the category “the pinnacle of endurance racing” and the machinery “impressive.”
This season marked Chadwick’s shift from single-seaters to sports cars. Racing in the European Le Mans Series, she secured three wins and made history as the first female winner in the series’ top category. Partnered with Mathys Jaubert and Daniel Juncadella, she helped the team to a third-place finish in the ELMS standings and also competed at the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the first time—an experience she described as one of the highlights of her career despite an ultimately frustrating result.
Alongside her on-track duties, Chadwick has worked as a pundit for Sky Sports F1 and continues her ambassadorial work with Williams, supporting F1 Academy driver Lia Block. While she values the variety those roles have brought, she emphasizes her primary identity as a racing driver and her desire to secure long-term professional opportunities on track.
Chadwick explained that the increasingly narrow path into Formula 1 influenced her decision to pursue endurance racing. She argued that the focus in motorsport should broaden beyond the 20-seat F1 grid to create more professional roles for women across categories. The reserve role with Genesis aligns with that view: it is both a technical development position and a visible seat at the top level of endurance racing.
Before moving into sportscars, Chadwick spent 2023 and 2024 competing in the United States’ Indy NXT series, winning a race in her second season and testing an IndyCar in September 2024. Although she came close to an IndyCar opportunity, she felt endurance racing was the right direction and sees the Genesis role as a clear path toward her stated aim of earning a full-time Hypercar drive in the WEC.
Chadwick also acknowledged that age and timing play into career decisions in motorsport, but she stressed that adaptable drivers can still build sustained, professional careers outside single-seater routes. Her appointment at Genesis Magma Racing combines hands-on car development work with a public platform to continue promoting greater female representation at the highest levels of racing.