Formula One legend Juan Manuel Fangio once told her, You go too fast, you take too many risks,” but Maria Teresa de Filippis was fearless and determined to race.
Maria Teresa was the youngest of five children. They were all competitive. She was born in Naples on Nov. 11, 1926. Her father was a count and was influential in bringing electricity to southern Italy.
She never set out to race cars. She participated in horse riding, skiing, and tennis. One day, at age 22, two of her brothers, Antonio and Giuseppe, bet her she couldn’t drive fast. She accepted the challenge and got behind the wheel at a hillclimb.
She won her first race behind the wheel in a Fiat 500 at Salerno-Cava dei Tirreni. She found she loved the speed and the thrill of it. Maria Teresa’s parents supported her endeavors. Her mother told her to, “go slow and win,” while her father encouraged her to be succeed in whatever she chose to do in life.
She continued racing in hillclimbs in southern Italy where she was the only female driver. She purchased a Urania 750cc in 1949 and participated in races around Italy. In that car, she scored three class wins and three class seconds during her first season as a racing driver. She finished sixth in the Stella Alpina and ninth in class in the Coppa d’Oro delle Dolomiti, beating out up to 100 more experienced drivers.
The following year, Maria entered the Mille Miglia. She didn’t finish, but she found romance with Formula One driver Luigi Musso. Whenever he raced alongside her, she seemed to put in better performances. This was probably due to placing bets on who was going to finish higher. Musso pushed her to be a better driver. Their personal relationship ended on amicable terms in 1953.
I got tips from Luigi Musso, from Juan-Manuel Fangio. The first time I raced at Monza, Fangio took me around the circuit. We got to Parabolica, and he said, ‘You see the 300 sign? Do not brake. Do you see the 200 sign? Don’t brake. When it comes to the 100 sign? Don’t brake.’ At this point I asked, ‘Do you want me dead?’ He laughed. ‘You brake as you start to turn in’.
She also found support from her fellow drivers.
at the Giro di Sicilia, a 1080-km race, she was presented with flowers after crossing the finish line—but was then disqualified. The race organizers said she had been push-started at the beginning of the race when her mechanic had pushed her into position after she had stopped a few inches short of the starting line. De Filippis’s fellow competitors were not pleased with the decision. Legendary Italian racer Tazio Nuvolari protested: “You made a girl drive over one thousand kilometers on wet roads only to then disqualify her. This is crazy.”
She never felt slighted by her accomplishments as a racer from male drivers.
At first they thought I wouldn’t be able to compete, but then I went all the way to Formula One. 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.’ Apart from that I don’t think I encountered any prejudice – only surprise at my success.
Maria was also entering in non-championship Grands Prix in Italy. She competed against actual Grand Prix drivers who were looking for some extra cash as well as up-and-coming drivers looking to impress the big name teams. She finished second in the Napoli Grand Prix – her best finish. Here average finish was in fifth or sixth place.
In 1955, Maria Teresa expanded her racing to other events. She won a race in Sardinia, finished runner up at Napoli, and returned to hillclimbs. It wasn’t all good for her this year.
She crashed Musso’s Maserati at Mugello. The car was dangling over a cliff and it took emergency services a long time to get her out of the car without sending it, and her, over the cliff. Maria Teresa crashed again in Sardinia, which ended her season.
In 1956, she started participating in long-distance racing. She crashed again in the Buenos Aires 1,000 km. She had swerved to avoid another accident and struck a telephone pole. After returning home with a broken shoulder, she returned to racing in Italy that summer.
Her wins returned at Caserta and she gathered a second place at Napoli. All her work was starting to pay off. She joined Scuderia Centro Sud in 1957 with a promised entrance in a Formula One race. She had already rejected an offer from Ferrari because she did not want to drive for them.
She purchased a Maserati 250F grand prix car similar to the one Fangio raced in, and won. She entered several more non-championship Grands Prix. After a fifth place in Syracuse, she entered in her first World Championship Grand Prix.
In 1958, only sixteen drivers were allowed to race at Monaco. The race here still coveted among Formula One drivers. It is the race they all want to win. It is a difficult track, with narrow turns at high speeds. Maria Teresa did not make the cut, but she did become the first woman to enter a World Championship Grand Prix.
She didn’t give up. The following month, she was near the back of the grid in nineteenth place at the Belgian Grand Prix at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. Race cars were capable of hitting 175 mph and la diavola (she-devil) wasted no time in overtaking several drivers to finish tenth. In today’s Formula One, that will score you a point. Back then, it didn’t.
Maria Teresa was now the first woman to compete in and finish a Formula One race. It was here Fangio told her she drove too fast and took too many risks.
She went on to compete in Protugal where engine failure resulted in her not finishing. She participated at Monza, but was forced to retire after completing 57 of 70 laps.
She continued racing in 1959, failing to qualify, but was determined to keep racing. She made the decision to retire from racing that August.
Her friend, Porsche team boss Jean Behra, had lost his drive after punching Ferrari team manager Romolo Tavoni at the French Grand Prix. De Filippis was supposed to drive the Behra’s car, a Behra-Porsche based on the RSK, at the AVUS speedway in Germany, but she allowed him to get behind the wheel instead. He died after going off the 40-degree banking at the northern end of the track. Behra was thrown out of his cockpit and hit a flagpole.
The previous year, Musso was killed at the French Grand Prix. The death of her two close friends was too much.
“When I stopped racing, that was because Jean had died in a race where I was supposed to race, not him. He went to the race without a drive, and I said, ‘It’s ridiculous that I should race in your car when you stay on the floor. You go and race it. It’s your car.’ I didn’t even go to the race. Then, on the radio, I heard that he was dead. I decided, on the spot, to stop racing. Too many friends had gone.”
She explained further with the Observer.
There was a succession of deaths – Luigi Musso, Peter Collins, Alfonso de Portago, Mike Hawthorn. Then Jean Behra [whose team de Filippis had joined earlier in 1959] 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.
She visited the paddock over the years with her husband, Theodor Huschek. They married in 1960 and had a daughter. She had nothing more to do with racing until 1979 when she joined Le Club Internationale des Anciens Pilotes de Grand Prix F1, an organization for retired drivers. She served as vice president in 1997 and became honorary president just before her 85th birthday. She was also the founder of the Maserati Club in 2004.
In 2006, at age 80, Maria Teresa got behind the wheel once more. At 88, she made a commercial with Maserati and drove once again.
The 5”2′, 100-pound driver, who once needed extra padding to reach the pedals of a racing car, did something few have ever done – she was a member of the exclusive club known as Formula One. She is one of two women – Lella Lombardi the other – to have ever started a Formula One race.
She raced in a time when the cars were more dangerous and death more likely, and held her own against her male counterparts.
Maria Teresa de Fillippis died at age 89, in Scanzorosciate, Italy on Jan. 8, 2016, an F1 legend and inspiration to us all.