Table of contents
- Portrait of Moto3 rider Maria Herrera Alone among men
- “Maria is an extremely talented driver”
- The Dorna also tries to help Maria Herrera
- “Drive the guy away, then I’ll get rid of her”
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 in Aragon, 2013.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 in Motegi, 2016.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 in Motegi, 2016.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 in Motegi, 2016.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 in Motegi, 2016.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 in Brno, 2016.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 in Brno, 2016.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 at Le Mans, 2016.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 Valencia, 2015.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 at Phillip Island, 2015.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 at Phillip Island, 2015.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 at Phillip Island, 2015.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 in Aragon, 2015.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 in Misano, 2015.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 in Misano, 2015.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 in Misano, 2015.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 at Silverstone, 2015.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 at Sachsenring, 2015.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 at Sachsenring, 2015.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 at Sachsenring, 2015.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 at Sachsenring, 2015.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 at Sachsenring, 2015.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 at Sachsenring, 2015.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 at Sachsenring, 2015.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 at Sachsenring, 2015.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 in Assen, 2015.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 in Assen, 2015.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 in Catalunya, 2015.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 at Le Mans, 2015.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 in Jerez 2015.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 in Jerez 2015.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 in Jerez 2015.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 in Valencia, 2014.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 in Jerez 2014.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 in Jerez 2014.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 in Aragon 2013.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 in Aragon, 2013.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 in Aragon, 2013.
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Maria Herrera in Moto3 in Aragon, 2013.
Sports & scene
Motorsport
Portrait of Moto3 rider Maria Herrera
Portrait of Moto3 rider Maria Herrera
Alone among men
Maria Herrera is the only woman in the motorcycle world championship. But things are not going well for the Spaniard in the 2016 season. First her dad Antonio had to buy up the LaGlisse team to save the season. Maria also injured herself at the Sachsenring.
Markus Schocker
10/20/2016
There she stands in the paddock of the Sachsenring, her left forearm in a cast, with her right hand she holds the umbrella. Crash in qualifying, broken spoke. Maria Herrera will only experience the Moto3 race, which starts in a few minutes, as a spectator. But she wants to be back at the Austrian Grand Prix in mid-August, she says and smiles a little pained. This year there is really little coming together for Maria Herrera. One could also say: It could hardly have been much worse.
We go to the team transporter’s trailer. Papa Antonio Herrera is already there. He takes his smartphone out of his pocket and swipes across the display. “There, look!” You can see Maria at the top of a podium, right next to her Fabio Quartararo, 2014 Moto3 junior world champion, beaten second. Papa Herrera keeps wiping. “And there!” Again Maria as the winner, this time Jorge Navarro looks down next to her. They are pictures from the 2013 Spanish Moto3 Championship and the 2014 Junior World Championship, when Maria drove to several victories and regularly duped the boys. Too bad times have changed. Jorge Navarro won the Barcelona GP this season. Maria Herrera, on the other hand, has so far managed a meager four World Cup points. Now she also has her arm in a cast.
“Maria is an extremely talented driver”
Turbulent months lie behind father and daughter Herrera. And above all the dad can be seen how much this time drained the substance. To put a long drama in a nutshell: Just at the most inopportune time, after the fourth race of the season in Jerez, the Herreras broke up and the already financially troubled LaGlisse team. So Papa Herrera, a successful entrepreneur, bought the team without further ado, renamed Maria’s initials and start number to “MH6” and thus secured Maria’s second Moto3 World Championship season.
“Maria is an extremely talented driver,” says KTM MotoGP test rider Alex Hofmann, who often watches the fast girl from the central Spanish province of Toledo from the edge of the track. With her extreme hanging-off driving style, Hofmann believes, Maria has everything to be at the forefront in the Moto3 World Championship. But it currently doesn’t. As well as? The completely newly formed family team has to get used to it first. In addition, Maria missed some of the valuable test days before the start of the season. That in turn makes it difficult for crew chief Sergio to work out the right set-up for the KTM. And of course, daddy’s financial resources are not infinite, savings must be made. The Herreras needed nothing more urgently than sponsors, but they had long since allocated their 2016 budget when Antonio knocked on the door. It is “very, very difficult”, admits his father, to raise funds now.
The Dorna also tries to help Maria Herrera
Father and daughter can count on prominent supporters. Two-time MotoGP world champion Marc Márquez stopped by for the team presentation at the beginning of May. And Aprilia works driver Álvaro Bautista, who once romped down the dirt track on Papa Herrera’s property as a young guy, is at Maria’s side with tips anyway. The MotoGP marketer Dorna is also trying to get Maria Herrera. Dorna Communications Director Ignacio Sagnier emphasizes that no distinction is made between men and women, everyone is treated equally. But Sagnier knows that hardly anything would attract more attention to Dorna and its Moto3 product than a woman capable of winning in the field.
This is how Maria Herrera fights her way through the season. Her best qualifying result was 22nd place, her best race results two 14th places in Argentina and Assen. In its premiere year 2015, things went much better. Fourth place in the rain at Silverstone – until the fall. Eighth place in Assen – before she was shot down by Niccolò Antonelli. Eighth place in qualifying at Phillip Island – followed by eleventh place in the race. It is measured by such performance, but how can it meet the demands when the framework conditions are as difficult as this year?
“Drive the guy away, then I’ll get rid of her”
Women and motorcycle racing have always been a delicate topic. Can they even do that? For many a gentleman of motorsport creation who is inspired by chauvinism, the question is even: Are they even allowed to do that? Valentino Rossi, the icon of the sport as nine-time world champion, was once quoted as saying that women had no place in the motorcycle world championship. Later he rowed back. He just wanted to say that motorcycling is difficult for women – because of the high amount of strength required. In an interview with “Welt am Sonntag” in 2001, Rossi confessed that he would give up his sport immediately if the then German quarter-liter World Cup driver Katja Poensgen drove faster than him. The ridicule of the people would be unbearable for him.
Maria Herrera knows such sayings, the doubts, the reservations. She knows from her own experience how humiliating it is for some of her fellow drivers to be overtaken by a woman. “There are actually pilots who drive extra aggressively when they see me,” she says. She doesn’t name any names, but reveals her method of dealing with them: “Give it up and drive away this guy, then I’ll get rid of you.” If only it were that easy.
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