Most of the exotic specimens posing in the present day Formula One paddock would have been too busy guzzling sponsors’ champagne to notice the presence among them, at selected events, of a small, white-haired, nicely turned-out but otherwise unremarkable elderly woman. Yet Maria Teresa de Filippis, who has died aged 89, had once raced grand prix cars: the first woman, in fact, to take part in a round of the world championship, and still one of only two.
In recent years De Filippis visited the circuits in her role as secretary of a club reserved for those who had taken part in the championship series, and whose members included some of the great figures against whom she raced and whom she befriended, such as the five-times world champion Juan Manuel Fangio, until his death in 1995, and Sir Stirling Moss.
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