The first woman driver to race in the Formula One world championship, Italian MARIA TERESA DE FILIPPIS, has died aged 89, according to Alan Baldwin of REUTERS. Austrian ALEX WURZ, a member of the Grand Prix Drivers' Club that counted De Filippis as its honorary president, tweeted, "We lost another pioneering member of the motorsport world today." The official Formula 1 Twitter feed also mourned the passing of an "incredible woman." Born in Naples on Nov. 11, 1926, De Filippis started three grands prix in '15 "at the wheel of a Maserati and finished 10th and last at Spa in Belgium." She "failed to finish in Portugal and her home race at Monza." A '12 book that marked the 50th anniversary of the Drivers' Club "recalled how De Filippis was greeted when she tried to sign up for the 1958 French Grand Pris in Reims." Race Dir TOTO ROCHE said, "The only helmet a beautiful woman should wear is the one at the hairdressers" (REUTERS, 1/9). The AFP reported De Filippis retired at the end of the '59 season "after the death" of her team Owner JEAN BEHRA. She later told The Observer newspaper in '06, "Too many friends had died." The Italian reportedly became an F1 driver "after a bet with her brothers over how fast she could drive" (AFP, 1/9). The PA reported she had earlier tried to qualify for the 1958 Monaco Grand Prix, "failing in her efforts along with another debutant," the future F1 CEO BERNIE ECCLESTONE. Both "were too slow to qualify." The late LELLA LOMBARDI is the "only other woman to start a Formula 2 race," making the grid in 12 grands prix between '74 and '76 (PA, 1/9).
