Maria Teresa de Filippis, the first woman to start a Formula 1 world championship race, was born a century ago today. The Italian driver made her debut at the 1958 Belgian Grand Prix, wheeling a privately-entered Maserati 250F from 19th on the grid to a 10th-place finish. Points ran only five deep that year, so the result went unscored. De Filippis started two other races in '58 but retired from both with engine failures. She failed to qualify for Monaco twice that season. Her F1 career ended there, and she died in 2016.
The milestone matters because F1 has taken eight decades to get close to fielding another woman on the grid. Susie Wolff tested for Williams. Jamie Chadwick won three W Series titles but never got the call. F1 Academy is the latest pipeline effort, but the sport still hasn't answered the question de Filippis forced in 1958: when, not if.
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