On this day 10 years ago, Maria Teresa de Filippis passed away; she was Formula 1’s first ever female driver.
De Filippis entered five grands prix in the late 1950s, started three and took a 10th-place finish at Spa-Francorchamps, but her journey was bigger than that.
The Italian was born in 1926 in the Naples area, the daughter of wealthy Conte de Filippis. Taunted by her older brothers, she won the Salerno-Cava dei Tirreni on her racing debut in a Fiat 500, in the late 1940s.
As her brother Luigi failed to break into the new drivers’ world championship – he hoped to compete in the 1950 Italian Grand Prix at Monza – Maria Teresa rose through the ranks; her parents did not oppose her endeavours.
“My father helped me, of course; he inspired me to succeed in whatever I chose to do,” she told Motor Sport magazine in 2012. “My mother didn’t object too much either – because I was winning. She liked that, you know.”
De Filippis still defied sexism, though she told The Guardian in 2006 that she faced prejudice on only one occasion: “The only time I was prevented from racing was at the French Grand Prix. The race director said: ‘The only helmet a woman should wear is the one at the hairdresser’s.’
Maria Teresa de Filippis, Maserati 250F
Photo by: LAT Photographic
“Apart from that I don’t think I encountered any prejudice – only surprise at my success.” Of course, the definition of prejudice evolved over time, and De Filippis told Motor Sport that “when things became too intense or too vulgar [with male drivers] then I would joke with them, make fun of them, and they would go away”.
De Filippis was the 1954 Italian Sportscar Championship runner-up; in 1956, she easily fought her way from the back of the grid to second place in a sportscar race in her home city of Naples, and in 1958, she made it to Formula 1, driving a Maserati 250F – the model Juan Manuel Fangio took to the world title in 1957.
De Filippis did not want to take orders from men, and that played a part in her decisions. “That is why I went to Maserati, and why I never wanted to go to Ferrari,” she told Motor Sport. “Why would I want to be at Ferrari? Just because I am Italian? No. At that time I did not want to be commanded by Mr Ferrari. I spoke to him and I told him I didn’t want to drive for his team. In those days he would say one word and everybody jumped. That was not for me.
“Also, I felt there was no real culture, no real depth to it all. At Maserati it was more a family concern, with more real people, and they were easier to talk to. And I could take my own car to the team, that was important for me.”
Maria Teresa de Filippis, Maserati 250F
Photo by: LAT Photographic
De Filippis’ world championship debut coincided with Fangio’s retirement, and the revered Argentine gave her “lots” of advice. “He used to say: ‘You go too fast, you take too many risks.’ I wasn’t frightened of speed, you see, and that’s not always a good thing. He worried I might have an accident,” she told The Guardian. She never crashed out of an F1 race, not even the non-championship events she also took part in.
“I was never anxious, I didn’t feel any fear,” she explained to Motor Sport. “These men in F1, they were my heroes – Fangio, Ascari, Villoresi – and they were good to me. I never had any problems with the big drivers, only the smaller ones who didn’t like it when I beat them.
“I admired Fangio, as a person and a driver, because he was a simple man and he worked very hard to achieve all the success he had. Nothing was given to him. On the track I called him my ‘race father’ because he treated me so well, so normally, and I admired him for that. He was a gentle man.”
De Filippis’ career at the highest level turned out to be short-lived; she retired following Jean Behra’s fatal accident on 1 August 1959 at Berlin’s high-speed, treacherous AVUS track.
“Too many friends had died,” she told The Guardian. “There was a succession of deaths – Luigi Musso, Peter Collins, Alfonso de Portago, Mike Hawthorn. Then Jean Behra was killed in Berlin. That, for me, was the most tragic because it was in a race that I should have been taking part in.”
Maria Teresa de Filippis, Maserati 250F
Photo by: LAT Photographic
De Filippis went on to found a family, and though she stayed away from motor racing for two decades, she joined the former F1 drivers’ international club in 1978, becoming its vice-president in 1997.
In the 67 years since her retirement, however, only four women entered world championship grands prix, and just one made it to the starting grid – fellow countrywoman Lella Lombardi, in 1975 and 1976.
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