Jamie's Indy Diary: The 2024 story so far

As Williams Racing flies across the pond for the second time this season, we have one driver who has enjoyed North American racing all year.

Jamie Chadwick is driving through her second Indy NXT season, the direct series to IndyCar, and her sophomore campaign is seeing far better drives, including a maiden podium appearance.

How does Jamie view her 2024 campaign? We caught up with our long-serving star to find out.

"Generally, performance-wise, we've been strong," said Jamie off the back of her P3 finish.

"Especially off the back of last year. I think the progress we've made and how we came out the blocks this year has been really good.

"On the flip side, we weren't able to translate that into a result until Indianapolis, where we got our first podium.

"We want to be fighting at the front the whole time, which I genuinely think we're capable of doing this year."

Aside from that rostrum trip, the results table doesn't represent how much Jamie's year-on-year improvement since her 2023 Indy NXT debut.

She reached a high of P4 in last weekend's Detroit round after a personal best Quali result before a puncture dropped her from the top spots.

The highs of rewriting history with her P3 finish in Indianapolis soured, too, after a gearbox failure in the second race from another P4 position.

Not one to let these results lead to disappointment, Jamie remains upbeat about her performance improvements, saying, "Obviously, there is frustration from a mechanical point of view.

"But those kinds of things are out of your control. We focus on the positives, and there are a lot of positives...

"I'd say there are a lot of positives to come from this season as a whole, from what I've seen.

"We put a lot into the off-season. I came into this series last year knowing where I was at and what work needed to be done.

"But it was tricky to make meaningful steps within the season while still learning so much and going to so many new places.

"Coming back for the second year, knowing what to expect, I put a lot of work into my training.

"I changed trainers and started working with a specialist boxing trainer.

"That's helped me get fitter and stronger, which has made a significant difference to how I feel in the car.

"That, combined with the relationship with the team and knowing the tracks, has made a massive difference."

Boxing isn't the sole change for Jamie in 2024, with her taking on an adviser role in the Miami GP weekend, where Lia Block started her second F1 Academy race.

"That's my role with Williams this year as an adviser to the F1 Academy team and a mentor role within that, helping Lia.

"I've really enjoyed it. Miami was the first race I'd been to with her.

"She's definitely got a bright future. It's a big transition for her, coming from off-road racing into circuit racing.

"Mentoring is not something I've done before; I'm enjoying it! With someone like Lia, it's great because she's got the talent to be exciting.

"It's a similar environment to what I went through in W Series.

"For her, coming from never doing anything like this before, I feel I can help her with what's to come in F1 Academy.

"She's in a really good environment at Williams Racing, which supports her a huge amount, in my opinion.

"And also with her ART team, where she's getting the opportunity to prepare like the F2 and F3 drivers do as well."

Jamie will continue her Indy NXT campaign in Road America this weekend as Alex and Logan take on Montreal to make it a trio of Williams Racing representatives in North American action over the Canadian GP weekend.

We'll also see Lia Block taking part in Spanish Formula 4 and Alessandro Giusti in the third round of the 2024 FRECA season.