The first woman in Formula 1: Maria Teresa de Filippis
- Martina Bevini
- Mar 2
- 3 min read
Maria Teresa de Filippis made history as the first woman to ever take part in a Formula 1 Grand Prix. Although scoring zero points over the course of a very brief F1 career, she is regarded as a trailblazer in motorsport thanks to her talent and achievements and it is vital that her legacy lives on.
History was made on 18 May 1958 at the Monaco Grand Prix. Sitting in her Maserati 250F, Maria Teresa de Filippis was attempting to qualify. They called her “Pilotino”, “little pilot”, because of her short stature and undeniable talent. She had been racing for 10 years by then, against the likes of Juan Manuel Fangio, Alberto Ascari, and Tazio Nuvolari. Fangio had given her plenty of advice and helped her get acquainted with her car - the same car in which he’d won his fifth world championship. Even he thought she went too fast. That day, de Filippis failed to qualify for the Monaco Grand Prix but went down in history as the first woman in Formula 1.
Countess Maria Teresa de Filippis was born in 1926 in Naples, Italy. She started racing cars at 22 years old on a bet: two of her brothers challenged her to prove that she could be a fast driver. Her first race was the Salerno-Cava dei Tirreni in 1948, a local 10 km hillclimb, in a Fiat 500. She won in her class and finished second overall. So, de Filippis’s passion for car racing was born: this was just the beginning.
She quickly rose through the ranks, taking part in various events including endurance and hillclimb races. Her outstanding results gained her the respect and admiration of her competitors – that is, the ones who did not call ahead race organisers or her team to know if she would be racing because they were too scared of being beaten by a woman.
De Filippis’s results did not go unnoticed by the press, either, who notably called her performance at the 1950 Giro di Sicilia “phenomenal”. There she achieved a fourth-place finish, driving for 11 hours under the rain, only to be disqualified after the race: her car had been push-started. Instead of letting her know of the disqualification at the start, the organisers let her finish the 1000 km race in adverse weather conditions, just because having a woman taking part in the competition would be a matter of interest for the press.
She moved on from touring cars to sports cars in 1953 and finished second overall in the 1100 class of the 1954 Italian Sports Car Championship. Seeing her potential, Maserati brought her in as a works driver, racing their cars in the 2000 class.
In 1958, de Filippis was ready for her Formula 1 debut, personally buying a Maserati 250F from the previous year and competing as a private entrant. She entered five grands prix and achieved her best career result in Belgium, where she finished in 10thplace. This would be her only F1 race finish; that season she failed to qualify once, in Monaco, and twice she had to retire from the race – in Portugal, she suffered an accident, and in Monza, her engine broke. In France, however, she was prevented from racing altogether. Her entry to the French Grand Prix was rejected by the race director, Raymond Roche, who stated that “the only helmet a woman should wear is the one at the hairdresser’s”.
In 1959, de Filippis’s friend, fellow F1 driver Jean Behra, built a car based on a Formula 2 Porsche for her to race that year. Right before the German Grand Prix Behra was left without a seat, and she lent him her car. Behra died in an accident during a support race that weekend. When she heard the news, she immediately decided to stop racing. Too many friends had died.
After retirement, de Filippis focused on her family. She occasionally visited grands prix paddocks, and in 1979 she joined the International Club of Former Grand Prix Drivers but otherwise kept away from motorsport. She died in 2016, at 89 years old.
De Filippis was the first of five women to attempt to qualify for an F1 grand prix in the history of the sport, and one of only two women to successfully qualify (the other being Lella Lombardi, who remains the only woman to ever score points in F1). Her rising through the ranks all the way to F1, combined with her outstanding results in other categories throughout her career, make de Filippis a pioneer of motorsport and women’s inclusion in it.