Maria Herrera makes history as first female race winner in the Spanish Championship

Young Spanish rider Maria Herrera made history today by winning the second Moto3 round of the 2013 Spanish Championship at Motorland Aragon, under the watchful eye of Alvaro Bautista who was supporting her and his other “pupils” Juanjo Nunez and Dani Saez on location and also co-commentated the race for Spanish television.

Maria has been training together with Álvaro Bautista for many years and shown great promise from the start, collecting excellent results in various smaller Cups along the way which eventually secured her a spot with the highly experienced Repsol CEV Team last year. Rumours about her joining the world championship as early as 2013 were abound, but while fellow Spaniard Ana Carrasco made the step up with Team Calvo this year to become the first female regular in the Moto3 world championship, Maria stayed in the Spanish Championship for her second full season to collect more experience.

And it seems to have been the right decision, the 16-year-old taking a hard-fought and well-measured win today after a race-long four-rider battle, the three top riders within a second over the finish line. Yesterday the young Toledo native already made a small piece of history by qualifying for a front row start, the first female rider to do so in any CEV round. Her grid appearance today was then boosted with some VIP guests as Álvaro Bautista stood by her side until the start of the race and world championship rider and recent Moto3 winner Alex Rins acting as her “umbrella boy” for the day.

This is the first win for a female racer in any of the classes of the Spanish Championship which puts Maria now also in a good position to fight for the championship.