Maria Teresa de Filippis

Maria Teresa de Filippis

Nation:	Italy
Automobile world championship
First start:	1958 Belgian Grand Prix
Last start:	1958 Italian Grand Prix
Constructors
1958  Maserati - Scuderia Centro Sud
statistics
World Cup balance:	no World Cup placement
Starts Victories Poles SR 3 - - -
World Cup points :	-
Podiums :	-
Leadership laps :	-

Maria Teresa de Filippis (born November 11, 1926 in Naples , † January 9, 2016 in Scanzorosciate ) was an Italian racing driver . Also known as “Pilotino” (little racing driver), de Filippis was the first woman to compete in a run for the World Automobile Championship, which is now known as the Formula 1 World Championship .

Career

Beginnings: road and sports car races

De Filippis came from a family of industrialists and started racing cars at the age of 22. According to her own account, this decision was due to a bet she made with her brothers, who refused to believe that their sister could drive a car fast. She has already won her first automobile race, a ten-kilometer road race between Salerno and Cava de 'Tirreni , which she contested with a Fiat 500 . In 1954 De Filippis was second in the Italian sports car championship. The following year, she drove sports cars for Maserati's factory team.

formula 1

1958: Maserati

Maserati 250F

After de Filippis had contested numerous mountain and long-distance races for Maserati, the opportunity arose in 1958 to start in Formula 1 races. Maserati had already withdrawn its works team from Formula 1 at the end of the previous year, but the company continued to provide private drivers with the successful 250F racing car , with which Juan Manuel Fangio won the drivers' world championship in 1957, and also looked after them. After de Filippis achieved fifth place in a 250F at the Syracuse Grand Prix, which was not part of the World Championship , she was also able to use such a car in four races of the World Automobile Championship .

She made her first attempt with a car registered by her own team at the 1958 Monaco Grand Prix , for which only 16 drivers were allowed to start. De Filippis failed here - as did Bernie Ecclestone  , among others - already at the qualification; she was five seconds short of the lap time required to participate in a race. The first Formula 1 race took place a month later at the Belgian Grand Prix . She finished the race in tenth. At the Portuguese Grand Prix in late summer 1958, de Filippis drove for the Scuderia Centro Sud , a well-organized private team from Modena , as an exception . She started the race as 15th and last, which she had to end after six laps due to an engine failure. At her home race in Italy she finally drove a self-reported Maserati again. Here she retired after 22 laps again due to an engine failure.

1959: Porsche

In the 1959 Automobile World Championship she competed for the Porsche works team at the Monaco Grand Prix . The Behra-Porsche she used was a vehicle designed for Formula 2 with a displacement of 1.5 liters, which was underpowered compared to the regular Formula 1 vehicles, which had a displacement of up to 2.5 liters . While her teammate Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips qualified for 12th place on the grid in a Porsche 718 , de Filippis failed in qualifying. She was three seconds short of qualifying. This year she also took part in the BRDC International Trophy for Scuderia Ugolini with a Maserati 250F , a Formula 1 race that was not part of the world championship. Here she retired after 40 of 50 laps with defective power transmission.

After the accidental death of her good friend Jean Behra in a sports car race as part of the supporting program for the 1959 German Grand Prix at the AVUS , she ended her career in August 1959.

Private life

After retiring from motorsport, de Filippis married. She became the mother of a daughter. She only got back in touch with motorsport in 1979 when she joined the International Club of Former F1 Grand Prix Drivers , of which she was Vice President from 1997 to 2011.

De Filippis on women in motorsport

Maria Teresa de Filippis was one of only five female racing drivers who took part in Formula 1 world championship races over a period of 65 years. After her retirement, it took 15 years before a woman, Lella Lombardi , competed in a Formula 1 race again. A little later, Divina Galica and Desiré Wilson temporarily competed in Formula 1, and Giovanna Amati's commitment to Brabham in the 1992 season was the last female racing driver in Grand Prix racing until 2016.

In an interview with the British magazine The Observer in 2006, she stated that the physical strength required to participate in a Formula 1 race was "not typically female". Nevertheless, women are able to successfully take part in Formula 1 races: "Women can do everything that men can". In many cases, however, they lack the necessary support. Many sponsors are of the opinion that women would not make it anyway; therefore they would not invest their money in a racing driver.

Statistics in the automobile world championship

general overview

season	team	chassis	engine	run	Victories	Second	Third	Poles	nice Race laps	Points	WM-Pos.
1958	Maria Teresa de Filippis	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	2	-	-	-	-	-	-	NC
	Scuderia Centro Sud	Maserati 250F	Maserati 2.5 L6	1	-	-	-	-	-
total				3	-	-	-	-	-	-

Single results

season	1	2	3	4th	5	6th	7th	8th	9	10	11
1958
		DNQ			10				DNF	DNF
1959
	DNQ

Legend
colour	abbreviation	meaning
gold	-	victory
silver	-	2nd place
bronze	-	3rd place
green	-	Placement in the points
blue	-	Classified outside the point ranks
violet	DNF	Race not finished (did not finish)
	NC	not classified
red	DNQ	did not qualify
	DNPQ	failed in pre-qualification (did not pre-qualify)
black	DSQ	disqualified
White	DNS	not at the start (did not start)
	WD	withdrawn
Light Blue	PO	only participated in the training (practiced only)
	TD	Friday test driver
without	DNP	did not participate in the training (did not practice)
	INJ	injured or sick
	EX	excluded
	DNA	did not arrive
	C.	Race canceled
		no participation in the World Cup
other	P / bold	Pole position
	SR / italic	Fastest race lap
	*	not at the finish, but counted due to the distance covered
	()	Streak results
	underlined	Leader in the overall standings

Individual results in the sports car world championship

season	team	race car	1	2	3	4th	5	6th
1955	Maserati	Maserati A6GCS	BUA	SEB	MIM	LEM	RTT	TAR
					DNF			9
1956		Maserati A6GCS	BUA	SEB	MIM	ONLY	KRI
			DNF
1958		Osca TN1500	BUA	SEB	TAR	ONLY	LEM	RTT
			DNF

Web links

Commons : Maria Teresa de Filippis  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Formula 1 statistics from Maria Teresa de Filippis on motorsportarchiv.de
• Maria Teresa de Filippis on the Grand Prix Drivers Club website

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Simone Valtieri: Addio a Maria Teresa di Filippis, la prima donna pilota . FormulaPassion.it, January 9, 2016.
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Filippo Cataldo: Pioneer with a leather cap. On the death of Maria Teresa De Filippis. (No longer available online.) Süddeutsche.de , January 9, 2016, formerly in the original ; accessed on January 10, 2016 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
3. ^ ^{A b c} James Eve: Maria Teresa De Filippis: Even the great Fangio thought she drove too fast. The Observer , March 5, 2006, accessed January 10, 2016 . 
4. ↑ Maria Teresa de Filippis on the website of the Grand Prix Drivers Club (accessed on January 10, 2016).