2021 Rookie of the Year Nerea Martà and fellow Spaniard Belén Garcia will aim for their first victories in the all-female series as they team up at at new team Quantfury.
Team Quantfury completes its drivers line-up with an all-Spaniard duo: top racers Nerea Martà and Belén Garcia, who both impressed at pre-season testing after a strong 2021 campaign.
Quantfury – an online trading and investing platform that offers commission-free trading and investing at real-time spot prices of global and crypto exchanges – joins the likes of Puma W Series Team, Bristol Street Motors, Jenner Racing and cortDAO, alongside fictional entities Racing X, Sirin Racing for the upcoming W Series season.
"We are happy to have Nerea and Belén join the Quantfury W Series Team", said Iyandra Smith Bryan, General Manager, Quantfury Trading.
"From the moment our team met them, we aligned on a personal level, but also in the way we approach our craft. They are extremely talented drivers who are fully committed to their racing careers, and their performance at the Barcelona pre-season test speaks volumes."
"They are genuine and strive for excellence regardless of the obstacles in front of them. That's what being a Quantfurian is all about. Choosing Nerea and Belén was an obvious and easy choice for Quantfury, and we are confident that Quantfurians will have plenty to cheer for this season."
2021 rookie of the year Nerea Martà was part of the W Series Academy project, which was created by the first ever all-female single-seater championship with the aim of securing a two-year seat for the youngest drivers on the grid, in a development program that allowed 19-year-old Marti to approach her W Series debut with less pressure. Nerea immediately proved to be fast enough to battle consistently in the top-5 and, at only her fourth race in the series, she finished on the podium at Hungaroring.
Martà completed her first season in W Series fourth in the points standings and as the best rookie, collecting 61 points over the 8 rounds. Together with championship contenders Jamie Chadwick and Alice Powell, she was the only driver to finish every race in the points.
In her second W Series campaign, Martà steps away from the Academy team – which is likely to take on two young new-entries – and joins the newly-founded Quantfury team, as she targets her first win in the series.
"I'm very happy and proud to be driving for the Quantfury W Series Team in 2022", said the Valencian. "I know that Belén and I will form a really good team, and I'm looking forward to working together and achieving our goals."
"I'm very proud of how well I did in my first season with W Series last year. It was all new for me, but I worked hard, adapted as the season went on and got stronger, ending the season fourth in the championship and as the best rookie."
Martà made her single seater debut in 2019 and is one of the five drivers to have graduated from the Spanish F4 Championship to W Series. In her rookie season, she finished seven times in the top-10, also claiming a second place overall on her first weekend. She would finish equal on points with Belén Garcia.
Following her impressive debut in W Series, Nerea was selected alongside Irina Sidorkova for a FIA F3 test at Magny Cours, where she had the opportunity to test the fastest F3 car.
Her racing resumé further expanded in 2022, when she was announced as part of the first BMW Motorsport Espana team in the BMW M2 CS Racing Winter Cup, where she finished second overall.
"Going into this season, I feel more prepared in all aspects, but I want to remain calm and not put too much pressure on myself. I want to win but I will just give my best in every race and, if I do that, I'm confident the strong results will come. I've been training twice a day in a high-performance centre with other elite athletes, doing simulator work as well as physical and mental training."
Bélen, 23 from Barcelona, will enter her third season in single-seater racing, having made her debut in 2019 in Spanish Formula 4, where she clinched the female trophy title and an overall victory at Navarra, at her first weekend in the series. The win earned GarcÃa the record of first woman to win a Formula 4 race in Europe.
At the end of the season, GarcÃa was selected for the second edition of the all-female W Series championship, which would later be cancelled due to the pandemic. She finally made her debut in W Series in 2021, where she almost ended on the podium at her first race at Red Bull Ring, Austria.
Her impressive debut was helped by the experience in Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine, as Garcia contested a partial campaign with Spanish-Swiss team G4 Racing.
In the all-female championship, GarcÃa finished 10th in the drivers' standings, claiming five point-scoring finishes. Due to a series of unlucky circumstances – including the scary qualifying crash at Spa Francorchamps – she narrowly missed out on the automatic confirmation on the 2022 grid, but she was invited back at pre-season testing in Arizona, where she set the benchmark lap times for the newcomers.
Returning to the W Series car in Barcelona on her home track, Belén performed brilliantly and was thus selected by the promising new outfit.
"It's a great team of people at Quantfury", she said.
"They want to win, and they're honest and straightforward which I like because I'm not someone who pretends to be someone else. I'm happy to be team-mates with Nerea – being Spanish speakers in a team with a largely Spanish-speaking fanbase will work well.
"I didn't have much luck in my first season with W Series last year. I can do better and at the pre-season test in Barcelona I showed that, so I'm hoping to be at my best level this year and learn from the mistakes I made in 2021. I'm realistic, I want to improve on last year but that's not something that happens overnight. A good goal for me is the top five and if better results come that's great."
Belén Garcia will also compete part-time in Formula Regional European Championship by Alpine – one of the most competitive junior formulae in Europe.
With Nerea Martà and Belén Garcia as their signings, Quantfury is expected to compete for podiums and victories: with two of the drivers to watch coming into the 2022 W Series championship, the involvement of Quantfury in the all-female series certainly started off with great potential. The season is scheduled to start in May at the new Miami Grand Prix venue.
