Maria Teresa De Filippis, the first woman to contest a World Championship Grand Prix, has passed away at the age of 89. F1\u2019s traiblazing lady was born in Naples on Armistice Day in 1926 and made her competition debut aboard a Fiat 500 to satisfy a bet between her brothers as to how fast she could drive. She won that first race.<\/p>\n
An avid equestrian in her teens, by the age of 21 she was suiting up for her Grand Prix debut at Spa \u2014 having previously failed to qualify her year-old Maserati 250F at Monaco \u2014 where she was the final classified finisher in 10th<\/sup> place. Later that year she qualified the Maserati for the Portuguese and Italian GPs, but retired from both events, though classified 8th<\/sup> in Italy.<\/p>\n She subsequently failed to qualify a Porsche for the next year\u2019s Monaco GP, but later that year the death of her friend and team owner Jean Behra\u2019s in a crash at Avus, as well as that of mentor Luigi Musso and several other friends, led to her giving up the sport.<\/p>\n She then married and devoted herself to her family and giving birth to a daughter, but generally stayed away from racing until 1979 when she joined the International Club of Former F1 Grand Prix Drivers, becoming the organization\u2019s vice president in 1997. In 2004 she was also a founding member of the Maserati Club, later serving as its chair.<\/p>\n Maria is survived by her husband Theo K. Huschek and daughter Carola, to whom, along with her many friends in and out of the sport, Vintage Racecar<\/em> extends its sincerest condolences.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Maria Teresa De Filippis, the first woman to contest a World Championship Grand Prix, has passed away at the age of 89. F1\u2019s traiblazing lady was born in Naples on Armistice Day in 1926 and made her competition debut aboard a Fiat 500 to satisfy a bet between her brothers as to how fast she could drive. She won that first race. An avid equestrian in her teens, by the age of 21 she was suiting up for her Grand […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":532073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[263,18114,18330],"tags":[17152,324,18435,11526,11499,13301,18107,89,16791,604],"class_list":["post-495142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-car-culture","category-people","category-profiles-car-culture","tag-car-culture","tag-maserati","tag-people","tag-jean-behra","tag-luigi-musso","tag-maria-teresa-de-filippis","tag-people-profiles","tag-porsche","tag-profiles","tag-f1"],"yoast_head":"\n