Taru Rinne

Taru Rinne is a Finnish former professional motorcycle racer. She was the first woman to achieve points in Grand Prix motorcycle racing.

Career

Karting

Rinne started her racing career in karting, competing against future Formula One drivers Mika Häkkinen, Mika Salo and Jyrki Järvilehto on multiple occasions. She won the Finnish Karting Championship in the 85cc class in 1979, ahead of Häkkinen. In 1980, she finished second behind Salo and ahead of Häkkinen who was fourth. She battled with Häkkinen again in 1981, and this time finished second in the series with Häkkinen becoming the champion. The next year Rinne won the series again and Häkkinen had to settle with second place. In 1983, she also finished first in the championship but was disqualified from the last race due to illegal fuel. Thus the title went to Häkkinen. She was also given a personal one-year ban from racing, which eventually ended her promising career in karting.
Häkkinen has later commented on Rinne:

"I used to race go-karts in Finland, and my toughest opponent was a girl," he explains. Häkkinen was ten or eleven years old at the time and was regularly beaten by her. "She really went full throttle," he says, still impressed. "Sometimes I couldn't understand how great this driver was. She had a fantastic racing line and incredible talent."

Road Racing

Despite her success on four wheels, Rinne decided to switch to motorcycles and debuted in the Road Racing World Championship, now known as MotoGP, in 1987. In 1988 she got her first points, the first woman ever to do so. In 1989 she qualified second with her Honda bike for the 125cc class GP at Hockenheim and managed to lead the race for a while. She eventually finished seventh in the race and 17th overall for the season.
This was to remain her best ever result, as Rinne got into a bad accident at Paul Ricard during practice in 1991, breaking both her ancles. While recovering from the accident, she got a letter from Bernie Ecclestone, who at the time decided which riders are allowed to compete in the series. The letter said that she is not qualified to compete next season. This ended her career at top-level and Rinne later said that the letter was the biggest disappointment of her life.