Maria Teresa de Filippis (11 November 1926 – 8 January 2016) was an Italian racing driver, and the first woman to race in Formula One.
She participated in five World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on 18 May 1958, but scored no championship points. Though her Formula One racing career was brief, she won races in other series and is remembered as a pioneer in the sport. Info from Wiki
Bio by Stephen Latham
Maria Teresa de Filippis started her racing career at the age of 22, despite her brothers mocking her and saying she would be slow. But, in what must have been a satisfying moment for her, driving a Fiat 500 she won her first race, on a 10 km drive between Salerno and Cava de’ Tirreni.
She also took part in hillclimbing and endurance racing and at the 1950 Giro di Sicilia, she was disqualified after the finish as the organisers claimed she had been push-started. An outraged Tazio Nuvolari protested about it, declaring ‘it was crazy and that they had made a girl drive over one thousand kilometres on wet roads and then disqualified her.’
Racing in the Italian Sports Car Championship, she finished second in the 1954 season, driving cars built by small specialist constructors, including a Taraschi-Urania, a Giaur-Fiat, and an 1100cc OSCA, built in Bologna by the Maserati brothers. She would go on to be given the nickname ‘diavola’ (she-devil).
In 1956, as a Maserati works driver, she took a second place in a Maserati 200S in a sportscar race supporting the Naples GP. This was run through walled streets and tree-lined boulevards, though it was an impressive result as, having been forced to miss practice, she had fought her way from the back of the grid to finish second.
Turning down the chance to race for Ferrari, she entered her first world championship event, the Monaco GP in 1958, in a Maserati, though failed to qualify (along with a young Bernie Ecclestone in a Connaught).
However, at the Belgian GP, although she was lapped twice she would go on to finish 10th. This was quite a result because, being only 5ft 2ins, in order that she could reach the pedals, her Maserati had to be adapted with special padding.
She was unable to compete at the next race, the French GP at Reims-Gueux but many years later she claimed the French race director had said “The only helmet a woman should wear is the one at the hairdresser’s” and had stopped her from entering.
At the Portuguese GP she was forced to retire due to her engine failing and at Monza she completed 57 of the 70 laps before retiring with engine problems. She later recalled that Fangio often gave her advice during the 1958 season, one time telling her ‘she went too fast and took too many risks.’
She then joined the Behra-Porsche RSK team the following year but didn’t qualify at the Monaco GP.This would be her final attempt at qualifying for a Grand Prix. Sadly, Porsche team leader Jean Behra died in a racing accident while driving in a sports car support race for the 1959 German GP at AVUS. She was supposed to drive at that event and was devastated by the deaths of several friends (especially Behra’s) and stayed away from motor racing for 20 years.
Then, in 1979, she joined the Club Internationale des Anciens Pilotes de Grand Prix F1, eventually becoming Vice-President and in 2004 was
a founding member of the Maserati Club.
A fellow member of the Anciens Pilotes club, Tony Brooks (who actually won the Belgian GP in which she finished 10th) declared she was ‘admired for her courage in a racing car, was very competent, had guts and was respected by her fellow competitors for that’.
Maria Teresa de Filippis: “Fangio told me I drove too fast”
Gallery F1
