Category Archives: F1 history

Maria-Teresa de Filippis, the first of only two women to start an F1 World Championship race, has died at the age of 89.

Born in 1926, de Filippis gained experience in domestic sportscar racing in Italy with OSCA and Maserati machinery before an F1 opportunity opened up in 1958, helped by the encouragement of mentor and Ferrari star Luigi Musso.

She drove a Maserati 250F in the non-championship Syracuse GP in April, and was classified fifth of the six finishers, albeit four laps down on winner Musso. She then made her first attempt to qualify for a World Championship race in Monaco, but was 22^nd fastest at time when only 16 cars were allowed start.

However she did make the field at Spa, creating history by taking the start from 19^th on the grid and finishing in 10^th place. She also qualified at Oporto in Portugal, where she took over a Scuderia Centro-Sud 250F after crashing her own car in practice, only to suffer an early retirement. She made her third GP start in her home event in Italy, where she ran as high as fifth in a race of high attrition before suffering a late engine failure.

De Filippis suffered a major blow when Musso was killed at that year’s French GP. However heading into 1959 she found a new mentor in Jean Behra, then a works Ferrari driver.

She drove a 250F in the International Trophy at Silverstone in May, in what proved to be her final F1 start. She failed to qualify at Monaco in Behra’s Porsche, and after the French star was killed at AVUS in August she announced her retirement from the sport at the age of just 33. Later she served as Honorary President of the Grand Prix Drivers Club.

The organisation’s current president Howden Ganley said: “Motor racing has lost a very lovely lady. She was an icon, the first lady to race in Formula One, and of course we younger ones certainly admired that, as did her contemporaries. Maria Teresa, with her boundless enthusiasm, was a mainstay in our Club for so many years. She will be irreplaceable.”

Although she started only three Grands Prix it’s a measure of her achievement that the only woman to successfully follow in her footsteps was fellow Italian Lella Lombardi, who took part in 12 races in 1975-’76.

De Filippis is survived by her husband Theo K. Huschek and daughter Carola. Her funeral will take place on Monday in Scanzorosciate, the town where she lived.

Phil Kerr, a key player in the early days of both the Brabham and McLaren F1 teams, has passed away in his native New Zealand.

Kerr first met Bruce McLaren at a hillclimb when he was 17 and the future F1 star was 15, and they were both runnng Ausin Seven Specials. Later Kerr studied business and accountancy, and initially worked for the New Zealand Forest Service before moving into engineering.

He combined his own racing activities with working behind the scenes of the sport, joining the board of the New Zealand International Grand Prix Association at an early age. He was also secretary of the Auckland Car Club. As a driver he was good enough to be shortlisted for the ‘Driver to Europe’ award – which was eventually won by his friend McLaren.

It was in 1959 that McLaren recommended Kerr to his Cooper team mate Jack Brabham, who was starting his own organisation. Kerr duly travelled to the UK and helped to set up and run Jack’s Chessington facility. Later he was instrumental in getting a young Denny Hulme into Brabham, and he played a key role in the successful 1966 and 1967 World Championship campaigns.

Kerr felt that he’d achieved all he could at Brabham, and looking for a new challenge he joined Hulme in a move to McLaren in 1968. He became joint managing director, and along with Teddy Mayer he helped to keep the team going after Bruce’s death in 1970. He left the team after running Mike Hailwood’s Yardley-backed car as a satellite operation in 1974.

He subsequently returned to New Zealand to develop his business interests, using the McLaren Group name.

Legendary F1 chief designer Gerard Ducarouge has passed away at the age of 73. The colourful Frenchman is best remembered for his work with Ligier and Lotus, where he was responsible for a string of race winning cars.

Born in October 1941, Frenchman Ducarouge qualified in aeronautical engineering. He first came to prominence with Matra, where he designed the cars that won Le Mans in 1972, ’73 and ’74.

After Matra closed its works team he joined Guy Ligier, who was creating a Matra-powered F1 car for 1976. Ducarouge designed the JS5, famous for the ‘teapot’ airbox that it used in the first few races of the season. Jacques Laffite took pole for that year’s Italian GP, and then gave Ligier its first GP victory with the JS7 in 1977.

Ducarouge is perhaps best known for the JS11. The car dominated the early part of the 1979 World Championship in the hands of Laffite and Patrick Depailler, although later in the year the team was overhauled by both Ferrari and Williams. The updated JS11/15 was also a frontunner in 1980, when Didier Pironi joined the team. Laffite then won two more GPs in 1981 with the JS17.

Ducarouge subsequently fell out with Ligier and joined the works Alfa Romeo F1 team, where he designed the 182, with which Andrea de Cesaris took pole at Long Beach.

In May 1983 he turned down the chance to join Renault and instead made a move to Lotus. The team had lost founder Colin Chapman at the end of the previous year, and new boss Peter warr was keen to find a ‘name’ to help placate sponsors JPS. In fact he had been offered a job by Chapman himself in the past, but had turned it down.

Employing a more methodical approach than that associated with ideas man Chapman, Ducarouge helped Lotus create the 94T almost overnight in the middle of the 1983 season, working with Martin Ogilvie. In 1985 Ayrton Senna joined the team, and the Brazilian formed a close bond with Ducarouge. Senna scored his first GP wins in Portugal and Belgium with the Renault-powered 97T. Ayrton added four more successes over the next two years with the 98T and the Honda-equipped 99T, before moving on to McLaren.

Ducarouge himself left Lotus after a disappointing 1988 season and joined the team run by his former Matra colleague Gerard Larrousse, before returning to Ligier for a second spell in the early nineties, where he was involved with the JS39 that ran in 1993-’94. Subsequently he drifted away from F1 and rejoined Matra to work on other projects.

A charming and stylish man, he was much admired and respected in the paddock.