Jerez, Race 1: Thrilling victory for Paola Ramos – Maria Herrera clinches the title

The meeting at the Circuito de Jerez is the sixth round of the 2026 Women’s Circuit Racing World Championship and thus marks the season finale. With 226 points, Maria Herrera leads the overall standings comfortably ahead of Beatriz Neila on 182 points. With a 44-point lead and 50 points still up for grabs, Herrera is the reigning and incoming world champion, provided she does not lose more than 19 points to her compatriot.

In Superpole, however, Paola Ramos, fourth in the World Championship, set by far the fastest lap. The 19-year-old is a Jerez specialist and won the second race a year ago as a guest starter. Herrera and Neila complete the front row of the grid. Lucy Michel qualified in 15th place.

At the start of the race at 12:00, the thermometer read 25 degrees Celsius and a light cloud cover drifted over the circuit. The 26 competitors had eleven laps to complete.

Ramos won the sprint to the first corner, followed by Herrera, Neila, Rivera, Ponziani and the Thai rider Sarapuech. Ramos emerged from the first lap with a 0.3-second lead over Neila and Herrera. Behind the top five, a gap of one second had already opened up. Lucy Michel was in 18th place.

Whilst Ramos and Neila pulled away from the second lap onwards, Herrera became embroiled in a battle for position with Ponziani. On lap 3, Ramos and the Polish driver Patrycja Sowa were handed a double long-lap penalty for a false start – meaning that, under normal circumstances, victory was virtually out of the question for the 19-year-old, even though she set the fastest lap of the race in 1:51.272 minutes.

Herrera struggled to hold her own against Ponziani and Rivera, and was already four seconds behind Neila at the halfway point of the race. The chasing group was led by Tayla Relph and comprised nine riders. Lucy Michel was battling it out in the top 15.

On lap 6, Ramos completed her first long lap and lost 2 seconds in the process, but rejoined the race in second place. Further back in the field, Pakita Ruiz crashed.

The penalty spurred Ramos on to peak performance. After her second long lap in lap 7, the teenager was in second place, 3.3 seconds behind Neila. On her own, however, Neila’s lap times were 0.7 seconds slower, and Ramos began a chase with a time of 1:51.154 minutes. Behind them, Herrera continued to battle against Ponziani and Rivera for at least a third-place spot on the podium.

With two laps to go, Ramos had halved her deficit with a time of 1:50.998. By the start of the final lap, she had closed in on the 24-year-old. Neila fended off the first overtaking attempt, but in the end Ramos refused to be denied victory and roared across the finish line 0.167 seconds ahead of Neila! Third place on the podium was secured by Roberto Ponziani, Ramos’s team-mate.

Although Herrera’s fifth place was not an outstanding result, it was enough to take the World Championship title home. Over the course of the season, the 30-year-old from Toledo proved to be the strongest rider.

Finishing 15th, Lucy Michel claimed the final World Championship point.