Ana Carrasco wins 2018 World Supersport 300 title
Ana Carrasco has won the 2018 World Supersport 300 title. This makes her the first female racer in history to win a motorcycle world championship title. Carrasco won her first title at the season-finale in Magny Cours, France, finishing in 13th position, giving her one point over her title rival. She had started the race 25th, and moved up the order to break into points scoring position.
Speaking after the race, the 21-year old rider, who moved to the WSS300 in 2017, took her first win in the series at Portugal last year, becoming the first female to win a world championship motorcycle race. This year, she managed a victory at Imola and performed strongly at Donington too, although the next three rounds of the championship didn't go quite according to plan for her. Despite this, she entered the final round of the championship with a 10 point lead over DS Junior team-mate Scott Deroue. Ana, however qualified an unimpressive 25th for the race, and struggled during the early portion of the event. However, when her team-mate Deroue retired on the sixth lap of the race, and her other title rival Mika Perez found himself slipping from first to fourth by the penultimate lap, things looked up for her.
But then came the absolute nail-biting last lap. Perez managed to move back into first, while Carrasco found herself in 13th position. Dani Valle, however, moved up into first place at the very end of the race, giving him his first victory, and forcing Perez into second. It meant that Carrasco had managed to clinch the title by one point, with Perez ended second in the championship, and Deroue third.
"It's unbelievable for me, we worked so hard to be here," she said after her win. "I can only say thank you to all the Kawasaki team, I can only say thank you to David Salom and all the team, they worked hard to help me arrive here and also to my family because they gave me everything this year, and my friends."
She went on to dedicate her championship title to Luis Salom who lost his life in a crash at Catalunya in 2016. "I wanted to dedicate this title to Luis Salom, we were good friends and the day we lost him I promised myself to dedicate my first title to him."
