The new WorldWCR series, the women’s world championship in motorcycling, reached the halfway point of its inaugural season last weekend alongside the MotoGP World Championship in Portimao.
Although the product on the track was better than anyone could have imagined, there is still a lot of work to be done to allow WCR to reach its true potential.
It’s no surprise that reigning Moto3 champion Maria Herrera has led the 2018 Supersport 300 series, beating 2018 Supersport 300 champion Ana Carrasco, with the pair sharing the win in all six races so far. They were, after all, the stars of women’s MotoGP racing ahead of the season-opening round at Misano in June.
But it was the emergence of Spanish riders Sara Sanchez (pictured above) and Beatriz Nayla as the main contenders that had the biggest impact, as they managed to outpace Herrera and Carrasco, and between them produced the most entertaining race ever seen in any MotoGP world championship this season.
So far, every race has been decided on the last lap, and the biggest margin of victory has been just half a second. Remarkably, half of the races have been won by less than a tenth of a second.
If you’re a fan of motor racing, you simply have to watch this championship – which is easy to do due to free global distribution on YouTube as well as the WorldWCR being included in the regular World Superbikes TV package.
However, while racing at the steep end may be great, there are still plenty of things the championship needs to do better in the future, if it is to fulfil its role in giving women a high-level platform to race on.
I should point out before I go any further that I own a horse in the race, as it is. My wife Maddie owns Sekhmet Racing, one of the series teams, and runs Mallory Dobbs and Lacey Whitmore in the championship.
As such, I have spent more time covering the series than any other journalist, and while I do not pretend to be unbiased, I am also able to speak from a position of complete immersion in WCR.
With that attitude comes an understanding of the greater obstacles facing many of those who were unable to compete like Carrasco, Herrera, Sanchez and Nella.
The first of these problems, and perhaps the hardest to fix in the short term, is the sheer spread of experience on the grid. This is insurmountable given the need to assemble a full 24-bike grid, but it did mean that the front group was several seconds ahead of the battles they had been battling on most weekends, thanks to most of the entrants having to learn the circuits.
With the WCR only giving one 25-minute practice session before qualifying, it was a case of a very accelerated learning curve for many of the group as the riders at the front – who are heading to tracks they already know – continue their work of preparing their bikes for the race.
This exaggeration was compounded by the name recognition and therefore the sponsorship that the likes of Carrasco and Herrera had also given to the series. Some riders were able to complete tests on Yamaha R7s from one series at every circuit on the calendar, while many were not.
The lack of experience of some of the drivers also contributed to a large number of injuries and accidents. With the combination of limited experience in major races (some drivers had only raced on small circuits before now) and major circuits, combined with the pressures of racing on a global stage, first lap accidents became very common.
This could have been avoided or at least mitigated with more pre-season testing rather than a single two-day round at Italy’s Cremona circuit, where the WorldWCR was just a support act on a public track day and the drivers were not given the chance to do basic things like start the practice race on the main grid. Several of them dropped the clutch in anger for the first time on the Misano grid in the first race.
This in turn seems to stem from the lack of interest of Dorna, the championship organizer, in the championship. The World Rally Championship is a project of FIM President Jorge Viegas, and Dorna seems to have had no interest in it at all. It was implemented somewhat in a hurry, and at very low cost, which widened the gap between the midfield and the front.
However, we hope that the success of the 2024 season, coupled with the acquisition of Dorna by Formula 1 owner Liberty Media, will lead to improvements.
The racing we’ve seen so far (both at the front and in the close groups at the bottom of the grid that don’t get much TV time) has been more than good enough to ensure WCR success, with the right support.
It is important that the championship is a success. The championship has already shown that rather than the achievements of Carrasco and Herrera so far being the limit for women in motorcycling, there are others who are willing to go further as they gain experience. And that there is greater talent yet to be discovered. The WorldWCR should be the platform that finds these girls, and show young girls that there is a place for them in motorcycling.
We recently took an in-depth look at the WorldWCR – including interviews with riders, former MotoGP racer turned WCR rider coach and FIM president Viegas – in Special episode of MotoGP Extra PodcastExclusively for Racing Members Club
