Maria Teresa de Filippis (11 November 1926 – 8 January 2016) was an Italian racing driver, and the first woman to race in Formula One. She participated in five World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on 18 May 1958, but scored no championship points. Though her Formula One racing career was brief, she won races in other series and is remembered as a pioneer in the sport. Biography De Filippis was born on 11 November 1926 in Marigliano, Italy. She was the youngest of five children of an Italian Count, Serino Francesco De Filippis, and a Spanish noblewoman, Narcisa Anselmi Balaguer Roca de Togores y Ruco y Perpignan. De Filippis' father owned the 16th-century Palazzo Marigliano in Naples, where she grew up. She started displaying an interest in sport since her teenage years, being a keen horse rider and tennis player. Early career In the late 1940s, at the end of World War II, de Filippis developed an interest in motorsport. Despite some reservations from her intimate circle of friends and relatives (two of her brothers told her that she would not be able to go very fast, goading her and making a bet that she would be slow), at the age of 22, de Filippis began her racing career. She won her first race, driving a Fiat 500 on a 10 km drive between Salerno and Cava de' Tirreni. This result gave her the confidence to compete in the Italian sports car championship, where she finished second in the 1954 season. Seeing her potential, Maserati brought her in as the works driver. In the following years, de Filippis took part in various motor racing events, including hillclimbing and endurance racing. She finished second in a sportscar race supporting the 1956 Naples Grand Prix, driving a Maserati 200S. Formula One In 1958 de Filippis was given the chance to drive a Formula One car. Although Maserati was a successful Formula One chassis manufacturer in the 1950s, supplying several teams and winning numerous races (in Juan Manuel Fangio won the drivers' title in a Maserati 250F, his fifth and final championship win), by 1958 the team had officially withdrawn from the sport but many of the cars remained available to privateers. On 18 May 1958 de Filippis was given the opportunity to enter the Monaco Grand Prix, the second round of the 1958 Formula One season, in one of the 250Fs. Of