Jessica Hawkins joins Aston Martin as Driver Ambassador
The Aston Martin Cognizant Team announced that W Series driver Jessica Hawkins has joined the British outfit as its new Driver Ambassador which will see the female driver work with the Silverstone-based team's partners, including Cognizant, BWT, SentinelOne, Peroni Libera 0.0% and Crypto.com.
Hawkins will compete for the 2021 W Series championship, which is scheduled to run races in support of eight Formula One Grands Prix this year.
As well as racing in the 2019 W Series championship, in which she delivered impressively strong points-scoring drives at both Assen and Brands Hatch, Jessica, 26, from Poole, United Kingdom, a former British karting champion, has raced in Formula Ford, Formula 4, the British Touring Car Championship, the Jaguar I-Pace eTrophy, and the Mini Challenge UK Pro Class, in which she scored five wins in 2017, finishing second in the Championship.
In addition, she has worked extensively as a stunt driver, first for Fast and Furious Live and then for the James Bond movie franchise; her daredevil stunt-driving will be a highlight for all petrolheads who watch the James Bond film, No Time to Die.
Commenting on the announcement, Hawkins said: “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. 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.”
Aston Martin's Team Principal Otmar Szafnauer added: “We are delighted to welcome Jessica Hawkins as Aston Martin Cognizant Formula One™ Team’s new Driver Ambassador. 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," he said.
