Female Moto3 rider adds to list of Spanish achievements

Victories and podium places have been commonplace for Spanish riders in all three of the MotoGP categories this year. Indeed, thanks to his second place in the Malaysian Grand Prix on Sunday, 20-year-old Marc Márquez looks set to win the world championship after his very first year in the MotoGP category. In Moto2, Spaniard Pol Espargaró is currently second on the riders' table, but is still in with a chance of winning the title, while all four of the top riders in the Moto3 category are Spanish.

But on Sunday, there was another significant achievement being notched up by a Spaniard, albeit a bit further down the field. Ana Carrasco, a 16-year-old rider from Murcia, in southeastern Spain, managed to bring her bike home in 15th place, thus scoring her first point of the season.

What's more, she has now become the first female Spanish rider to ever score a point, and only the fourth woman to do so in history.

To celebrate this achievement, her team threw her into her hotel swimming pool after the Malaysian race.

Carrasco has plenty of work ahead of her though, given that she is still too light to handle a bike from the Moto2 or MotoGP series. As such she has to put in twice as much time in the gym as her male counterparts.

"We have to keep working just as hard, and score a lot more points," the young rider told the press after the race at the Sepang circuit.