"Overall, it was just a messy race." - Jamie Chadwick faced a challenging race at Portland International Raceway: from a tricky qualifying up to being forced into a recovery drive, a late race incident denied her the seventh top ten of the season. Chadwick now heads to the final two rounds of the season on ovals.
The race weekend at Portland International Raceway was the last road course event of the 2024 Indy NXT season, with drivers hitting the track in Oregon and aiming for a strong finish to the year. Among those seeking redemption was Jamie Chadwick, determined to bounce back after an unlucky race at World Wide Technology Raceway, where her hopes were shattered in the opening laps after being put into the wall by a competitor after qualifying on the front row.
Chadwick's sophomore Indy NXT campaign has been largely positive, with the Brit showing rapid pace at nearly all tracks, securing her first podium at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, her first pole position, which she converted into her maiden victory at Road America, and achieving six top-ten finishes.
However, her season has also been marred by several unfortunate rounds where she couldn't translate her speed into race results. The last two events on oval circuits—where Chadwick has shown significant improvement—were perfect examples of this.
Returning to Portland brought high hopes, as it is a track where Chadwick has fond memories, having achieved her personal best there during her rookie campaign in 2023.
“Portland is where I actually got my best result last season, so I know that this track is good to me," Chadwick said before the event, which came just a week after her career-best qualifying on an oval. "The tiny details make a big difference there, so it’s going to be a team effort to make sure that we execute where we need to. After being on ovals these past two races, I’m excited to get back on a road course one more time this year.”
Chadwick entered the first practice session immediately showing good speed despite the red flag interruptions. She was soon up to P7 before the first stoppage, then another red flag came out with 2 minutes left on the clock. Chadwick set the 4th fastest time, behind Foster, Collet, and Pierson.
In the second practice session, Chadwick showed again strong pace, staying within the top five for most of the session and eventually finishing sixth fastest.
In qualifying, Jamie was in the first group and quickly clocked the second-fastest time behind Collet. However, as times continued to drop, Chadwick struggled to find more speed around the 3.166 km Portland road course. She ended fifth quickest in Group A, unable to replicate the speed shown in practice.
In Group B, Foster beat Abel for the lead, securing pole position, with Jamie starting in 10th place.
“It was a disappointing qualifying," Chadwick said. "We just really struggled with the car balance. It took a long time to get up to speed, and while the margin to second was quite close, it just felt super tricky out there. So, hopefully we can sort things overnight and have a good race tomorrow.”
At the start of the race, Foster couldn’t maintain his lead as Abel found a way past before the first corner. Foster stayed close behind but couldn't reclaim the top spot. In the midfield, several cars had to take the escape road at the first chicane, with De Alba spinning.
From the fifth row, Chadwick battled hard to make her way up and ended up losing one position at turn 1. Miller then overtook the Andretti driver on lap 2, dropping her to P13.
From then on, Jamie fought with Bogle and Miller and focused to recover, having opened a gap behind.
Chadwick picked up positions on Escotto - who went deep into the first chicane - and then passed Bogle with a good overtaking move, climbing back to P11 on lap 5. She now had 1.8 seconds to close to catch Miller ahead.
On lap 8, the first caution came out when Escotto made contact with James Roe at turn 1; Chadwick had been gaining ground on both Miller and Sundaramoorthy, and the caution gave her the chance to get back into the fight for the top ten.
The race restarted on lap 10: Abel kept Foster at bay after a side-by-side battle, with Aron and Collet closing in the leading duo. Jamie made an aggressive restart, passing Miller with a confident move around turn 9. Her next target was Pierson, just half a second ahead.
Jamie kept closing in, showing good pace but finding it hard to pass. She opened a small gap to Hedge behind her but was stuck behind the HMD Motorsports driver, which proved to be costly. Hedge in fact came back and joined the battle; he went for a late move into turn 1 but went deep - forcing Chadwick to take evasive action as both went into the runoff.
Despite taking out an advertising board, she managed to rejoin, albeit down to P14 with now 8 laps to go.
Jamie kept her head down and set a new personal best of 1:04.243, trying to recover but was over a second behind Hedge. The three time W Series champion did manage to reduce the gap, but ran out of time to attempt a pass and crossed the finish line in P14.
Abel led the entire race, surviving restart attacks from Foster to secure victory, keeping himself mathematically in championship contention as the only driver who could still beat Foster for the title.
Jamie Chadwick faced a challenging race, from a tricky qualifying up to being forced into a recovery drive on a circuit with limited passing opportunities. She ran in the top-10, trying to battle her way up the order, but after the off track moment in the closing stages, her chances of recovery were limited.
“This was a bit of a race, or weekend, to forget", she summarized. "I was just trying to stay out of the mess and then made a couple of mistakes. Overall, it was just a messy race."
"I'm disappointed because I think we had a quick car this weekend, but onto the next", she concluded.
The next and penultimate race of the season will take place at Milwaukee Mile in a week's time, on 31st August.
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