Queen of Speed (2021) Movie Script
The following programme contains
flashing images.
You know, in life, you have
to be always open to new things.
That means also for me
that everything is possible.
There is no limit.
My early feeling of speed
I can remember is skiing.
This was my dream because
I love speed, I love moving.
To go fast, it gives you
a little bit of adrenaline
because speed means a
little bit of danger.
And I think I like it. I like it.
Rallying is a race against
the clock, against the elements,
against yourself
and you have to be the best.
Tre, due, uno!
When the marshal waves the flag,
you are in your very own bubble.
(INDISTINCT INSTRUCTIONS)
It's just up to you:
your skill, your bravery.
Can you exceed yourself as a person?
I like the challenge of
controlling where you can go
in the limit with this,
I will say instrument...
..where it will become dangerous,
where it will become
that I cannot control.
You just need a slight little
mistake and you can end up in
a literally in a catastrophe.
So it can be very unforgiving,
very, very unforgiving,
but that is the beauty of it.
Unless you take risks,
there's no progress in life.
When Michele came on the scene,
all of a sudden the rest of the
rally world were thinking:
"We've got an issue here.
We've got a big problem."
They had to try and stop
this woman from beating them.
Rally driving was a sport
for men, not for women.
I don't like to be the first man
to lose against a girl.
(ENGINE REVVING)
I love challenges.
If somebody is saying something
you are not able to do that, bam,
I will show you that
I am able to do that.
You know, if you play,
you play to win.
I grew up in the south
of France, in Grasse.
I have a very lovely childhood,
with a lot of friends around and
my sister and, erm-
I was full of life,
ready for any action, maybe
the daredevil of the family.
She really had this special
energy that was really unique.
I mean, she's never tired.
You could ask her any time, "Let's
go there, at the end of the world."
"OK, when do we go?
I started to drive, I was 14 and
I wanted to move my father's car,
and with my friend in the
neighbourhood, they pushed me,
I started the ignition
and the car started
and I started to drive.
At that time, my father
was in the kitchen.
He could see his car going.
He said "Oh! Somebody
is stealing my car!"
My father was quite strict.
When he was saying something,
you know, you listened to him.
I think he wanted to set some
barriers, you know, to keep me
in the- in the rail, you know?
Because he knew my character.
For me a car was a way to be
free and to do what I wanted.
I had a fantastic life: partying all
the time, dancing, I love dancing.
Sometimes I could have
my father's Porsche 911...
..and when I was coming back from
dancing in the morning... (LAUGHS)
I was always looking for twisty roads
and trying to go fast maximum.
I never wanted to be a
rally driver at the time,
but my friend Jean,
he had a nice car.
He said, "I'm going to
Monte Carlo for doing a rally,
and it's the first time I heard
about motorsport competition.
He saw me so excited so he asked me
to co-drive for him in Monte Carlo.
I said, "Of course, why not?"
New adventure, you have to
go and, erm, wow, fantastic.
I have to say he was a
little bit in love with me,
but I was thinking only about
this opportunity, not about him.
I was 22, I even didn't
know what was a rally.
I discover everything.
Unlike most motor racing,
rallying is not a head to head
confrontation on a closed circuit.
The road to rally victory is much
more complex, yet this complexity
and the supremely difficult
conditions taken as a normal
part of the sport lure a galaxy
of drivers all over the globe.
Rallying was born I would say
beginning of the 20th century
with Monte Carlo since 1911.
It was an amateur sport,
anyone could take part.
Well, I mean anyone who had a car
which was not anyone...
..and Monte Carlo became
a real competitive event
from the 1950s and '60s.
Day or night, rally drivers press
on to the limit of their abilities,
crossing countries and continents,
competing over thousands of miles
in a few days.
It would have been a lovely
picture in the right weather.
It was an ultimate challenge
against the elements:
the mud, the rain, the snow, etc.
As drivers hurtle through
snow or mud clogged curves,
their co-drivers call out a
description of the road ahead
and possible unseen hazards
from a set of place notes.
Michele started as a co-driver.
and it was in 1973,
the first year of the
World Rally Championship.
Maybe it was fate.
I felt a big responsibility.
A good co-driver cannot win a rally,
but you can lose a rally
because of the co-driver.
I remember that it went well.
I was very happy.
It was a great experience because
I was doing something important...
..and I was excited of course.
My friend Jean was happy
with my work after Monte Carlo,
so we continued together...
..and my father was following us
all the time.
On one event, her father
arrived to watch,
and he saw the tyres
on the car were bald,
and clearly quite appalled at the
state of the car that she was
competing in.
Immediately he said,
"You are able to be behind the wheel.
I know you like to drive."
He said "I will buy you a racing car.
"I will pay for one year.
"If you are good enough you will
continue, if not you will stop."
My father, in fact,
loved cars since a young age.
In 1933, he had a sporty Amilcar.
I'm sure he would have loved
to drive in competition.
Unfortunately, the war happened
and he was captured
in the North of France.
He was a prisoner of war
for five years,
and of course it has changed
his life completely.
I think my father, through me,
realised what he has not been able
to do because he would
have loved to do that.
I didn't know what
I will be able to do,
but at the same time something is
saying, "Mm, yes. You will do it."
This was my first challenge.
Over two thousand women and a few
men supporters of women's liberation
braved a bitterly cold wind on
their march through Central London.
Women, join us!
The banners they carried
announced their four main demands-
free round-the-clock
childcare centres,
equal education
and job opportunities
(FRENCH SPEECH)
It was a great time for women,
I think.
The beginning of the big revolution
and the feminist movement.
(SONG IN FRENCH)
It was full of colour, you know,
short skirts, topless on the beach.
I mean, everything was free.
I didn't feel any barriers
or anything.
But it's true that you didn't see a
lot of women on the motorway driving
the car.
It was still, you know,
reserved for men.
And, of course, it was a sexist world
at that time.
Motorsport was a man's world,
a little bit like today, huh?
The drivers, co-drivers,
the engineers, mechanics,
they were all men.
Women were never taken seriously,
but my father didn't
think about that at all.
It was really incredible
what he proposed me.
He had so much trust on me.
When you realise afterwards,
you think really he build up
my career.
(BEEPING)
It's a first rally.
Of course, you are nervous.
I remember my foot
shaking on the throttle.
(FRENCH DIALOGUE)
My boyfriend Claude, he was
supportive, but not interfering,
not, you know-
I was sure I could trust
the advice he will give me.
Michele started her career
competing against women,
but there was not a lot of
competition among the ladies.
Very, very quickly Michele
understood that if she wanted
to progress in the sport,
she had to compete against men.
(INDISTINCT)
There is only three sports where
men and women can compete equally:
motor sport, sailing
and horse riding.
When you're in the car, nobody can
say it's a man or a woman driving,
you know?
You have to take the line, the
shortest possible always to go
the fastest.
You need to have the top level
to fight with, so until you are
matching with men,
you know where you have to go.
In the second year, my father wanted
me to go to Corsica and challenge
myself in a bigger event,
because Corsica was part
of the World Championship.
(APPLAUSE)
Anybody can do rallying.
This is the amazing thing about it.
As a privateer, you can
enter your round of the
World Rally Championship.
In rallying, you can put yourself
up against the best in the world.
I'm not sure how many other
sports you can do that.
Corsica is on asphalt and
it turns and turns and turns.
You never stop turning the wheel,
changing gears.
It never ends.
Physically it is exhausting
and your mind has to be clear.
You have the drops, so you
cannot afford one mistake.
It took nearly a week...
..starting in the morning
doing all day, all night.
I remember I was mixing coffee
and Coca-Cola to stay awake and
fighting all the time at the limit,
but it's fantastic, it's really
an adrenaline that is unbelievable
and when you're in competition,
you know,
you feel all the power of the car,
you feel the G-force, acceleration,
the braking.
All your muscles are very tense
because you are at the limit
of what you can really do
to control the car.
The car was going very well
in Corsica. I won my group.
My father was proud and me, too.
A little bit surprised.
People were amazed.
She had just started one year before
and finished in the first ten
in the World Rally Championship.
That was something very special.
They were convinced Michele
must be cheating somehow,
because how could she possibly
beat them?
Her car must have
more power or whatever,
improvements that are illegal,
so they asked the technical
scrutineers to check everything.
I knew that between my father
and my mechanic,
it was no way they could be
cheating for, for anything.
It was scrutineered and
checked by officials from the FIA.
They declared that my engine
was conformed,
so the rumour stopped immediately.
Of course you have a
little smile on your face.
Sometimes you don't have to speak,
you know, just to prove.
What was important for me is that
they accept me and that I was
treated like a driver.
This has been my
motivation all the time.
In '75 she has been
incredible at Le Mans.
It was an all-female crew.
They won the category, mainly
thanks to her drive and that result
attracted the sponsor of Elf.
The higher I was going, the
less women we find in the in
the championship.
In '77 I was driving a Porsche 911
and I had good results
but people were thinking how many
men, er, I have been sleeping with
you know, to be able to get this car.
At the end of '77,
I needed more sponsors.
Of course, I didn't want my father
to continue paying for me.
If you want to climb the ladder,
you have to progress.
Then I was called by Fiat to
do the full French Championship.
They were proposing me becoming for
the first time professional driver,
but I think if I had tested the car
before, I would have not accepted.
Physically, it was very, very
difficult: no power steering,
engine in front, very heavy
car to steer, so difficult,
you know, so painful,
my hand was full of blisters.
You didn't have to miss the gear,
if not,
you have, like, a electric shock
in your hand.
(FRENCH DIALOGUE)
I have suffered so much really,
I struggle a lot with this car.
This car was for a woman
the limit you can endure.
But I think it's with this car
that I learn how to go faster.
I was enjoying life all the time
between rallying, drinking,
smoking, partying a lot
and having a good time.
My father didn't give me any advice.
He was just there all the time.
But still I remember once,
he came close to me
and he just showed me the result,
you know?
He said
"You are eighth in the group."
I understood immediately, you know,
it means you have to do something.
After this rally, I decided to stop
completely smoking and drinking...
..except champagne.
The World Rally Championship,
it just got bigger and bigger.
Hundreds of thousands of people
would go out and watch
this spectacle, a real people sport.
This is the amazing thing about it,
it's a car that you can buy
in the showroom, and it's all about
selling cars, brand awareness.
Win on Sunday, sell on Monday.
The manufacturers really understood
that people could relate
to this kind of motorsport
in a way they never could
with Formula One.
ADVERT: The Escort is what
I'd call a driver's car.
For the man in the street,
he wants to see his car winning.
'Absolute left, 150,
flat left over brow.'
This is the kind of mistake
that's always going to be...
..the co-driver's fault.
(PHONE RINGING)
When I got the first message
from Audi,
a phone call,
but, of course, at home
nobody was speaking English.
I just understood 'World
Championship,' 'four-wheel drive...'
'Audi' and that's all.
I thought it was a joke.
When you ask what is Audi
at that time,
French people were answering
washing machine.
When I start at Audi,
'Vorsprung durch Technik.'
That was our slogan, and that
was OK, but the image was not.
We have had problems to sell
our cars.
Audi was secretly developing in
a quarry somewhere near Nuremberg
this car which had a turbocharger
and four wheel drive.
And then I received
an official letter.
Audi is producing the first vehicle
with the four wheel drive
ready for the World Championship
that Hannu Mikkola was engaged for
as the first driver.
At that time, Hannu Mikkola was
one of the best drivers in the world.
Hannu was a household name
in rallying.
and Hannu immediately saw
the potential.
Nobody had ever designed a
rally car like this before.
It was brave. It was bold.
It was unheard of.
Our goal was with the four wheel
drive and with the rally scene
to get the image like BMW
and Mercedes.
A director from Audi Sport
was a marketing specialist.
In his mind, what Audi want to have
is attraction for the public.
He was thinking "Oh, there is
a very good French woman driver.
"Even if she will not win...
"to have a woman in our team,
that will increase our image."
I was not nave, you know,
I am realistic.
Of course being a new manufacturer
in the World Championship,
you know, a woman will be more
publicity maybe for them.
But you know for me,
World Championship,
it's the top of the discipline,
so, of course,
(LAUGHS) of course, the answer
was very, very quick: yes.
Finally we started the new team.
It was very difficult
because there was no team
and all the mechanics who should
be specialist for the rallying,
we took from the production line.
Can you imagine?
I have to find a new co-driver.
It was clear they wanted to
have two females in the car.
I knew Fabrizia because she
has been a driver in Italy.
I knew that she changed
from driving to co-driving.
To be in a winning team is my life.
I need to be in a winning team,
and Michele was competitive like me.
The first time we arrived
in the workshop,
I think the mechanic wondered,
"What are those two women doing
here?"
Then they started to see
that we were quite serious.
(INDISTINCT SPEECH)
We clicked together very,
very easily and erm...
we had the same objective,
the same view.
She spoke perfectly French.
Oh, she was fantastic.
(INDISTINCT SPEECH)
When we started in '81,
we were the only women team
in the World Championship.
It was a very sexist world.
If you found women there,
usually they were on the podium
handing bottles
of champagne to the drivers.
You didn't find women in
positions of power within the team.
Yeah, it was male dominated.
Everybody was laughing:
they have got a woman.
They also were laughing
about four-wheel drive,
how stupid they are,
they will be the loser.
Michele was a surprising choice
for Audi in 1980.
This driver had never really
competed outside of France.
I must admit that I had some doubts
that she could be as quick
as the quickest.
The World Championship
is really a different world.
I was like an outsider.
My dream at that time I think
to be able to reach Hannu's level
to show them that they
were right to choose me.
In the '80s World Rally
Championship was 12 events
all over the world.
It was at night, it was at day,
sometimes thousands of kilometres.
It's literally the fastest person
down that stretch of road.
Each of those stretches of road,
those stages are combined,
and the person with the lowest
accumulated time wins the rally.
There were several manufacturers
competing,
Twenty professional crews
fighting in all conditions.
Every single team boss,
their main aim...
is bring home the manufacturer's
championship.
If after that, we can bring home
a driver's title, brilliant,
we've got the whole lot.
Early in the '81 season,
it's fair to say
it was a bit of a disaster
in terms of results.
The team was new, the car was new,
so it was a learning year
for everybody.
The early events were very
difficult for that car.
There were mechanical problems.
In terms of technology,
it was very complicated
and then on top of that there was
a huge expectation from the watching
world that this four-wheel-drive car
would deliver.
You know, if she failed,
all of the men were there
waiting just to point the finger
and say "Told you so, you know,
"she wasn't up to the job."
Suddenly, I was in the best team
with a new car and the best driver
in the world, Hannu Mikkola.
So what do you do?
I just have to fight
and it's what I did.
MAN: Audi Quattro!
It's always towards the
end of a season, San Remo.
Michele's getting better
and better and better.
The car is getting better
and better and better.
San Remo was very difficult
because it was
starting with one day on asphalt,
then it was two days on gravel,
then it was for one more full night
on asphalt.
The first stage is in asphalt
and for sure the Quattro was not
the easiest car to drive on asphalt.
The first leg, we were not
good enough.
I was not really happy
with my driving.
It's not easy to be faster.
It has been always a fight
between me and the car.
You try to find the perfect line,
you have to brake later.
Concentration, motivation.
That was the focus,
to find everything that
will help me to go faster.
In San Remo, gravel stages
was, erm, really fantastic.
We knew the car was very fast,
and we were really flying
and enjoying what we were doing.
The car has so much grip
and so much speed
that sometimes I felt my eyes
were going out of my sockets.
When it's working,
it's just fantastic.
It's like if you are
taming a wild animal.
So I went better and better on gravel
and then I took the lead.
To see all this big list
of top names behind you
was really impressive, but OK,
it's not finished.
You have to finish the race.
The shared ambition in that car
was incredible,
you know, Fabrizio was absolutely
on the same page as Michele.
They both wanted and they
both saw this opportunity.
We had the same thing in
our mind and it was to win.
We had a few stages to do, and
suddenly we heard a noise on the car.
Oof, at first I thought it was
the engine,
and then, no, I put my foot
on the brake
and the pedal went all the way down.
From the three minutes I was leading,
suddenly I was only 32 seconds
leading.
I was completely down and I felt
that all my effort, you know,
during these four difficult days
were for nothing.
At this stage, it was a
two-horse race
and Ari Vatanen was second.
Ari Vatanen was one of these breed
of flying Finns.
He was favourite to win.
What Ari Vatanen didn't need
was a girl getting in his way.
He'd said before the start
of the event
that he would not be beaten
by a woman.
He said you know,
the day I will be beaten by a woman,
I will stop racing.
I... if-if I've said that,
I then, I apologise
but OK, I could have said it
as a joke and now it has become-
I don't know if I really said that.
I apologise to Michele if I-
if I did that.
Yeah, sure. Her speed took me
and everybody else by surprise.
It put our our masculine pride
on a test.
We arrive in San Remo.
Of course, we were back on asphalt
where Ari's car was better
than my car,
so I knew that 30 seconds
was really little
and for Ari, I knew he was going
for it and he will not let me win.
I am not so sure, because we
have not the car for asphalt,
and they have a car for asphalt.
During the day, we sleep,
because the previous night
we have been driving and
the rally starts in the evening.
Instead of going to sleep,
we took a normal car and we went to
check all my notes in
this long stage again.
How I had the strength,
after those five exhausting days,
to go straight away to practice
for one more stage, I don't know.
The strength of Michele
was her character.
She was very demanding
with everybody.
With me, with the team,
but with herself, too.
And then impossible to fall asleep.
Your nerves are going over and you
want to sleep and you cannot sleep.
Trying to cope with all this
pressure, I even started to cry.
And at the same time, you think,
"No, I cannot give up now.
"The goal is there,
I mean you can win.
"You can be there."
When I woke up, suddenly,
my view of the situation
was completely different.
Suddenly, I was- Everything
was more clear, you know?
Not this gravel, so it's clear.
(INDISTINCT SPEECH)
I knew that going with the pressure
is when you make your mistake
and I said, "Fabrizia, we won't
make the mistake in this stage."
So we will start mentally like if
it was the first stage of the rally.
Maybe in the back of my mind,
I thought, like,
Michele would be easier to beat
than, for example, Hannu.
In a way, you try not to think
about it, you just go for it.
When you go flat out,
you can make a mistake,
and in San Remo, mistakes are
each corner waiting for you.
There was a long left-hand corner,
on the tarmac,
and I was so close to the wall...
..it just touched my tyre and,
and bent my steering,
and, oh, there we are.
The bubble had burst.
There was no doubting the domination
in the heat and dust of North Italy,
but Michele Mouton's consistent
performance gave her the
first ever win by a lady driver
in a World Championship rally.
It was just unbelievable.
It's a very great moment that
you remember in your career.
In your own country...
Oof, too much. (LAUGHS)
It was just too much for me.
At that time, she had awoken the
entire rally world by her speed.
The first ever woman winning a
World Rally Championship event.
If anybody had still some doubt,
then they had gone.
For me I was more proud
about my result
than really as a woman
winning for the first time.
I mean, this really,
I didn't think at all.
That was quite something.
Nobody ever dream of something
like that.
You see all these crews
of all these cars.
I remember with her mother
going there.
They say, "Holy cow,
all this for Michele!"
(LAUGHS)
# SWEET DREAMS (ARE MADE OF THIS) #
When I won San Remo, it was
a big surprise, you know.
For Audi, for sure, it was the
first victory was incredible.
They didn't think I
will be able to win.
If you look back at the original
contract,
it was a promotional contract
to put a lady in in the seat
and now suddenly, here
she was winning rallies.
This was above and beyond
what Audi had expected.
They were very happy.
We had to sign thousands
of autographs.
It was big news.
The newspapers were
full of Michele Mouton
being as good as a male driver.
It's a sensation.
Suddenly it was, you know,
a lot of press, media.
# Some of them want to use you... #
To sell more cars,
they need publicity.
# Some of them want to abuse you... #
I could understand, but naturally,
I didn't like that.
It was really too much for me.
Some journalists told me that we
were both of us quite attractive.
I could smash the men saying this.
I was fed up to hear
it was a woman who won.
We felt like drivers,
not women drivers.
It was end of the season
to sign for the new years.
The lawyers were there.
I sit at the table and they say
"OK, so we have the same contract
for next year." I said "No...
"It's very, very simple.
You just have to double it."
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
1982 was a very important year
for Audi.
The investment that Audi
would have made would've been huge
to develop this car and
had come through '81
with some success, but '82,
it was time to deliver.
They needed to win the championship.
I was feeling stronger as a driver.
We were all very positive
and very ready for the future.
Monte is traditionally
the starting place for every
World Championship campaign,
and it is one of the absolute
famous events that manufacturers
really wanted to win.
Now the biggest competition
was the Lancia team
and the Opel also with Walter Rohrl.
They were confronted by Walter Rohrl.
He's known as the computer.
He's an incredibly deep thinker.
First of all,
when I have done sports,
it was always one aim:
I want to be perfect.
He understood that Audi
had the upper hand
with this four-wheel-drive car,
so he knew consistency was key.
Walter was really,
I think ready for showing
that he could win
with the Opel Ascona.
We have a lot of respect
for each other, I think.
(ENGINE REVVING)
Tre, due, uno!
Of course, you know,
it's my home rally, you know,
so you always want to do well.
I think rally driving,
that is really car driving.
On race driving, you need
your elbows, you know?
In rally driving, it's very fair,
everybody
is going just alone against the
watch and the best one will win.
In the first stages,
we were among the three best.
But Monte Carlo is very special.
You can practice,
and it's completely dry,
and suddenly, it's full of snow.
I took the corner full speed,
like if it was no ice, and uh-
It was a very violent shock,
you know,
and some concussion for Fabrizia,
and for me, I have really
some twist leg and uh-
'82 season, it started very badly
for me.
It was Walter's event, you know,
he mastered it brilliantly.
And he drove a brilliant rally,
you know, a really
clever, tactical superb approach
to the event,
picked the right tyres
at the right time, and won.
You know you are driving with
a with the risk on your head,
and this is the challenge.
So many driver who has broken
the ribs, broken the spine.
There is a lot of accident.
The privilege of being young
is that you don't fear anything.
In the reality, you cannot
change anything.
I believe in fate,
for sure, for sure.
What is written is written, no?
(WAVES CRASHING)
One rally that I really love
is Portugal, but in Portugal,
there is a huge problem,
that is public.
So much public.
Right behind him and a
hot favourite for victory
is the leading Audi Quattro,
Hannu Mikkola.
Michele Mouton, Mikkola's
attractive French teammate
takes the opportunity
of warming up her racing tyres.
Portugal is one of the most
technically difficult rallies
in Europe.
You know, lots of corners
over crests.
There's no natural flow to the road.
You can't read the road.
Portugal, the battle was the
road and the crowd, really.
But rallying has always been
everyman's sport.
It's free of charge, your entire
family can go wherever in the
forest you want to go to.
You can be a few metres from
the cars.
Rallying had always been popular
historically in Portugal, and
in the 70s and 80s,
it just went through the roof.
These fans, they couldn't
envisage that the drivers
were ever going to get it wrong.
They all wanted to be close
to the cars.
They wanted to be part
of the action.
The fans would be trying to touch
the cars as they went through at,
you know, these insane speeds.
The mechanics would have to fish
fingers out
from where they've been
ripped off the spectators' hands.
It was madness, it was stupid,
it was crazy, but in those days,
it seemed to drive the popularity
of the sport on, I don't know why.
Fortunately, there were
no serious injuries here.
I mean, when you have to drive
through those conditions,
with people everywhere.
First, you are scared.
Then, you get used, because
they are there all the time.
And at the end, go fast.
You have to consider that they
are like uh, like trees, really.
To go fast in Portugal,
you need not to see the people.
If you start to think, you go home.
If you want to win, you
have to be the fastest one,
but at the same time, you know that
you are not allowed to do a mistake
because you will kill
twenty persons at least.
To do what we are able to do,
you cannot think about danger,
you cannot think about death,
you cannot think about anything.
You just have to concentrate on
this famous limit, being on the
edge of the razor, you know?
And you are not allowed to go off.
There is downhill 200 metres.
There are big trees, big like this,
they are not moving one centimetre.
You will destroy your car
and your life.
We were living with death,
and if you think about it,
you cannot do a good job.
(FRENCH DIALOGUE)
If you speak about Arganil,
anybody will tell you: fog.
It was mainly sure that
we will fog in this stage.
With Fabrizia, it was like something
unbelievable, the feeling.
I had the feeling that I could see.
I knew exactly the corner
according to what she was saying.
The difficult to co-drive...
..is to say the pace notes
in the good moment
in which the driver's mind
is free to understand the note.
Not before, not after.
She has to guess with her body,
she guess where you are
in the left, right corner.
There is moments like this where,
you know, everything is perfect,
everything is the way you feel
the car.
Even if she was saying a note,
I was going even faster than the
note that I could hear.
In Arganil, we were flying,
without seeing anything.
Walter was starting
one minute in front.
In the fog, you can see the
red light on the back of the car,
and I couldn't believe, you know,
I thought he had a problem.
She could see Walter ahead,
and she would've known immediately
that she'd taken a minute out
of him, because she started a
minute behind him.
And we won Portugal,
practically in Arganil.
It was incredible what Michele did.
(APPLAUSE)
She won by nearly 14 minutes.
And once again,
she showed she was cut from
exactly the same cloth as the likes
of Hannu Mikkola and Ari Vatanen.
For Michele Mouton and her equally
charming co-driver Fabrizia Pons,
a second world championship
triumph in only six months.
This one in Portugal, after a
superbly judged tactical drive.
No wonder the whole world
loves Michele.
All that brain power
and beauty, too.
Suddenly, you know, she was
beginning to build uh, some
momentum in terms of a
championship challenge.
I'm sure for Audi,
it was also a surprise.
I was suddenly having good result.
For Audi, it must have
been something, you know,
to think of, uh, what to do.
(FRENCH DIALOGUE, LAUGHTER)
Nothing for you Hannu, sorry.
Of course, '82 was given
for Michele Mouton
to help her to be world champion.
We all had this team spirit,
you know?
We wanted Audi to win,
and this was very strong.
To be in with a chance of winning
that is pretty phenomenal.
To then add to it the fact that
you're a number two driver,
and you're female,
it's another level.
Ah, you know, our relationship,
there was always a way.
I mean, um, rallying like we
do in the World Championship,
you are away 300 days a year,
so it's not so much left
for your own time.
During the year, it was growing up,
this fight with Michele.
By now, it was a two-horse race,
and it took some time for the
watching world to actually get
their head around the fact that
crikey, it was all about
Michele vs Walter.
Everybody was, of course, pushing,
I was under pressure,
and I said, "I don't like to be
the first man to lose against a
girl".
I am not diplomatic, I am
just telling what I'm thinking.
I don't like to be beaten by a
small girl from France. (LAUGHS)
Of course, at this time, you know,
rally driving was a sport for men,
not for women, pasta.
It's not about- I, you know,
I don't think about him.
Why you want I think about him?
I think about myself and it's enough.
You know, I have no time
to think about him.
He can do what he wants, you know?
It's not, uh, it's everybody thinks
for himself, not for the other one.
I said if you put a monkey
in an Audi,
he will go much faster uphill
than me.
I didn't mind, I mean,
he could say what he want.
Still, you have two other driver
in the team with the same car,
and you have to beat them.
All the comments,
they never touched me,
they never destabilised me.
I just wanted to win for the team.
The challenge of the Acropolis rally
is the terrain.
It's run across some of the
rockiest, roughest roads in Europe.
It's known as a sort of European
safari.
Rain has made the rally route
uncharacteristically muddy.
Drivers have to pick their way
around exposed rocks and stones.
Already this rally is all about
Michelle Mouton and the second
Audi Quattro, and with driving
like this, it's not surprising.
Unbelievable rally, you know.
The heat was crazy.
In the Quattro, it was 50
in the car.
I was losing between two and
three kilos for every 3,000km.
You have no time to drink or to eat
or to go to the toilet.
It was really tough.
I mean, you need to take
your overalls down,
you need to find a place,
where you pee?
Men, they just turn, and they do,
and me...
so I was learning not to drink.
Easy.
And then, you arrive,
end of the stage, and uh,
you even cannot talk,
you are thirsty, and, uh,
the photographers say,
"Can you smile?",
I mean, I could have killed
those people, you know?
So, of course, I had a reputation
of having a bad character
on top of being a woman. (LAUGHS)
I think it's mainly the way
she stares at people.
She's able to kill you
with her eyes.
(LAUGHS)
(FRENCH DIALOGUE, LAUGHS)
Michele Mouton has taken the lead
in her Audi Quattro,
ahead of Henri Toivonen
and the other works Opel.
Are you happy?
Yes, sure.
Do you know how far
behind Michele you are?
I feel like about
one and a half minutes.
Do you think you can catch
her up tomorrow?
Her? No way.
The ladies are too fast nowadays.
The last bend of the
1982 Acropolis rally
and Michele Mouton
storms to victory.
(CROWD CHEERING)
Winning Greece was really,
it was unbelievable.
You start to think,
"Wow, I won at San Remo,
"I won Portugal, I won Greece."
You feel stronger, you feel, uh,
much, uh, higher confidence
in yourself and, uh,
in the team and in your co-driver
and, uh, it's a very exciting time.
The penultimate rally was
Ivory Coast.
Of course, we knew that
if I was winning Ivory Coast,
I just had to finish the RSC Rally
in England and I could win the title.
Every event in Africa, I don't like.
I had no chance against Michele
in a four-wheel driven car.
Audi was a big favourite.
I think that Walter
was not happy at all,
because he loves to drive
where he can win.
I think we were all supporting
Michele.
I am too realistic to dream.
And so, I was not dreaming
that I could become World Champion.
I knew it was a possibility,
but not like suddenly thinking,
"Ah, I can be World Champion".
No, no, this is not Michele Mouton.
First you have to do the job,
and then you realise if you did
something good or not.
Ivory Coast is- It's wild,
it's nature, it's in the jungle.
The roads are incredibly muddy
and slippy and treacherous, and
it's a massively, massively
demanding event.
Of course, the situation
went a little bit different
the morning of the start.
At 7 o'clock, I got a
phone call from Claude.
He told me my father, he died.
Really, it was a big shock.
So, I was of course devasted and, uh,
I wanted just to go back home.
Suddenly, it was like
a blackout, you know.
For me, it was clear, I had to leave.
And I was ready to leave, ready.
Everything I did was because of him
and suddenly he was not there
anymore.
So losing him was really difficult.
My opinion was who cares
about the championship?
Go home, your mother needs you.
My mother talked to me,
and she said, you know,
"Your father will never like
that you stopped for him".
But then, of course,
I understood, and, uh-
So then you have to swallow
everything and try to start
the rally.
And, uh, it was really difficult.
And then I said that to Fabrizia,
and I said I don't want
anybody in the team to know,
because I didn't feel strong enough.
Normally, I like to suffer
in silence.
The event started perfectly
for Michele, and she did
manage to put all of that news to
one side, and she set out at great
pace, and built, you know,
a huge lead, 25-minute lead.
Of course, it's not been easy at all,
but I started to concentrate
on what I had to do.
Michele's mood, of course,
was terrible.
I did my best, but was not easy
at all, because what you can say?
Fabrizia helped me a lot.
Sometimes, I remember in
some places I was crying.
And, you know, she's very close
to me when you have the helmet on
and you can hear everything.
She has been very strong
and very helpful.
So one hour before Walter Rohrl,
so there was no doubt about it.
Take it easy, make it easy.
Suddenly, I could feel my
gearbox had some problem.
But just the beginning.
And I think we were supposed to
change the gearbox in 20 minutes.
And, uh, it went wrong.
It took more than forty minutes.
I think anybody sitting on
an hour and 20-minute lead
would've changed the gearbox,
because potentially
a gearbox failure
could cost you the rally.
And then, when I went back
in the car, no clutch.
We changed the gearbox,
and the clutch was not working.
And I have the two mechanics in
front of me, and I am screaming,
"It doesn't work! It doesn't work!"
In the beginning,
she was one hour in front of me,
and then I was coming up 50 minutes,
40, 30, 20, 10.
I mean, suddenly, you see
all your time going down,
and, of course, you are frustrated,
but what to do?
I mean, you know, if they made
a mistake, they made a mistake.
Having been more than an hour ahead,
she went out on the final day
behind Walter.
Of course, I remember,
I was, you know, so mad
about all of what happened
that I want to do it
for my father, and I felt
it was really something
that I will lose, you know,
not by my mistake.
Yes, yes, come on!
Yeah.
Yeah, we lost five minutes
for you yesterday.
Right. Alright.
I started to attack a little bit,
Fabrizia gave me a note.
There was a long straight,
and a sharp left at the end.
We were too fast, and-
That was really a big, big disaster.
You are out of the race.
So, at the end, I also did a mistake.
After this accumulation
of, uh, of circumstances.
I mean, uh, when we realised,
personally, I was crying.
I was crying, crying, crying,
crying.
Everybody was crying.
Walter was the champion.
The title, it was really never
in my mind, I think, at that time.
For me, the only goal was
I do it for my father.
It was over. It was a pity,
you know?
If she had finished,
she would be world champion.
But life is something very hard.
(LAUGHS) It is.
And for me, it was lucky, of course.
In my opinion, for me,
she is world champion.
But that's life, and uh,
we cannot change it.
After that, I flew directly back
home and my mother told me that
they will be waiting for me for the
funeral, and uh, so I arrive there,
but I was not strong enough
to go see him in the coffin.
When I left 15 days before,
he was, uh, washing his car.
I have the image.
And when I came back,
I didn't want to see him.
You know, I wanted to keep this image
of him washing his car.
I remember I gave him my gloves.
The loss of my father
was incredible at the time.
You know, for me, it was everything.
I mean, and I was young,
and it was the first shock
in my life for sure.
Because suddenly, you realise that,
you know, to be well-known,
to be a glory, to be rich,
to be everything,
what it means in life, you know,
it's love who is most important,
and when you lose the person
who is your hero,
because my father was my hero,
um...
..the rest is not important.
But he left with the feeling
that I will win.
Through me, he lived his own dream
and so at least
I have achieved that and
I know he was very proud.
It made me feel,
what about our relationship?
You know, if I want a family,
is he the right person and
start to think about all that.
The '83 season went well
for the team and for Audi,
because Hannu was world champion.
For me, it was a little
bit disappointing season.
You know, you have a season with
luck, and some seasons where
you don't have so much luck.
So when we heard that Walter
will join the team,
I was a bit disappointed.
Through '83, the feeling in Audi was
that Walter was a quicker driver,
and potentially more consistent.
With Hannu and Stig, we have
really a fantastic atmosphere
between the three of us.
When Walter arrived,
then it was, you know,
the team was really apart.
Actually, I don't know
why they needed Walter.
I don't know. I have not a clue.
That was, uh, to be honest, a
little bit against my opinion.
But it was the opinion of Audi.
Audi is in Bavaria,
Walter Rohrl is Bavaria,
he should be in our team.
My personal opinion
is that Audi probably
got the publicity they wanted
from an all-female team,
and they needed to change
their image.
And so Walter came.
Walter was arriving in the team.
I felt, you know, it was uh,
I really felt we were too many.
Like, if you feel you
are not needed anymore.
If you are a rally driver,
and if you are in a team,
you must be the leader,
otherwise forget it.
Michele didn't get a full programme.
For the first time in nine years,
she didn't do Monte Carlo.
It would've been hard for her
to take,
because she had delivered for them.
It's cutthroat and it's ruthless,
but it's what the sport's all about.
Business is business, so...
..either you accept,
and you do what they
tell you to do, or you don't
and you go.
This is the Audi Quattro,
and is usually in the hands
of one of the fastest people
in the world on four wheels.
Welcome to After Hours, Michele.
This way.
I'm shocked to see you so petite.
Why is it that you, a sweet girl,
can drive this huge car so well?
To drive a car, it's not
necessary to be a man.
I mean, the quality you need to
drive a car can be very feminine.
Once you started to drive well,
they couldn't say anything,
presumably.
Still, I don't know if
they accept it completely.
I'm sure forever, they will never
accept it, really.
In the height of the mid-80s,
the World Rally Championship was
rivalling Formula 1 for popularity.
It absolutely fired the imagination
of everybody out there.
We were dealing now with Formula 1
levels of power in the forest.
They were running on rocket fuel.
They were total and unbelievable
fire-breathing beasts.
And they just got faster and faster.
500, 600 brake horsepower.
They just oozed macho.
But they were a handful.
In '85, Audi wanted to develop
the market, you know, in America.
And we had to go to do
this famous hill climb
in Colorado, Pikes Peak.
We didn't know about this race
in Europe,
about the reputation of Pikes Peak.
It's part of American motorsport
fabric. It's an institution.
The big saying in Colorado Springs
is 'the mountain decides
who's gonna win,
the mountain decides.'
A family celebration reaching
across the generations.
Passing unnoticed among the crowd,
a world class rally driver,
Michele Mouton.
You are again in a man's world,
and, uh, really macho people,
I can say those ones have been really
macho people.
It was the first time
they saw a rally car,
a turbo-charged engine,
a first European, and
on top of that, a woman.
While Mouton is trying to set a
new course record in her rally car,
a dozen or more seasoned hill climb
veterans in their open-wheel racers
will be determined to see
that she doesn't.
I think she's really neat,
and I think she's pretty brave
to, um, go against all these guys
and stuff.
After the first day of the testing,
my times were already very good.
They realised that this woman is
arriving with something special for
them.
When we're sitting there lagging
with our wheels spinning,
she's going to be going forward
and I predict
she probably will beat
Al Junior's record,
so we've already started
working on stuff.
Alright, thank you Bobby.
Thank you.
During the practice training,
I was caught with excess speeding.
They give you a time penalty.
They wanted to slow me down,
for sure, it was clear.
..watch our times up here in
the dip. It's been a problem.
I think we've got the problem
worked out.
We're getting close to race time.
How do you feel as the
start time approaches?
The only problem we have now is
just to try to make no mistakes
from the start to the top, you know?
This is the only problem I have.
Try to be perfect.
Michele Mouton has walked
to the start line
because of pit driving violations
earlier in the week.
Despite the controversy,
she was ready to drive.
Pikes Peak is all about the start.
It's what you call a flying start,
you can build up a lot of speed.
So Michele was essentially
going from a standing start.
I thought to myself,
"Poor guys, you will see."
Because this gave me a boost
like never in my life.
Never I will lose this race,
and it's impossible.
Michele Mouton, against chicane 4,
lane 12 at 95 miles an hour
in that four-wheel drive
Audi Sport Quattro.
And still I went flat out because
I didn't want to lose anything.
Those famous four corners there
where the middle one, you have
to lift a little bit because
it's not flat out completely.
I decided not to lift.
So I pushed the throttle even more...
..and I was sure
that we were going off,
and when I realised it continued...
I swear, the next corner there,
I even brake later.
I was so determined.
You don't fear.
If not, for sure, you will not win.
Bravery is needed, even physical
force is needed, stamina is needed.
But Michele, she was able
to tame those monsters.
Mouton hit 97 miles an hour
at 16 mile,
and reached the top faster than
anyone in the history of the hill
climb:
11 minutes, 25.30 seconds.
It was really something
like a shock for them.
You know, big Americans thinking
that they are the best in the world,
and I was so happy that
I could shut their mouths.
Up to now, I'm still the only one.
For Audi for everybody in the
team, it's a very good result.
We are very, very happy.
This Audi story, we needed
to end it somehow,
and this was a good way to end it.
Once I had stopped, it was finished.
It's like if I had never
done that before.
From the beginning,
I had always in my mind,
that one day I will stop
for my personal life.
I was a journalist.
I'd heard about her, but I didn't
know really what she looked like.
All of a sudden, this dark girl
walks by, and I say wow.
She was very feminine.
Very nice girl, I wouldn't have
imagined her behind a, you know,
500 horsepower rally car at all.
I asked her to marry me the first
night, and she laughed it off.
So, I thought this really handsome
Swedish man
with blue eyes was completely crazy,
and uh,
so, of course, a relation started.
But Fredrik was very young
compared to me,
because we celebrated his
20th birthday when I was 32.
So I said, OK, this is not a
story that will last very long.
But then, you know, we were
really in love and, um,
then you say, why not?
Started to enjoy a little bit
more life, and, uh,
on the top of the world.
Suddenly, you met the right person,
and you want to build a family.
Michele said, "Fabrizia, Fabrizia,
I have to tell you something.
"I am pregnant.
I am awaiting a baby."
I said, "Michele, you will not
believe it, I am pregnant. too!"
"Je m'appelle
Jessie Johnsson-Mouton."
So, we were having the first
baby at the same time.
(BABY COOS)
When she did it and won
those rallies, '81, '82...
..it was kind of like, "Wow, Michele
Mouton's won- A female's won a world
rally".
That was like the watershed moment.
That was the opening of the
floodgates. The world's changing.
Who's gonna be the next one?
We thought it was incredible
what she did then.
For me now, it's even more
incredible,
because no-one's ever emulated it.
Michele is the only one, still,
the only woman to have set
a fastest time in the
World Rally Championship,
to have led a world rally,
to have won a world rally.
Near enough 40 years on,
no-one's got near.
Not even close.
Of course, somewhere I, you know,
somewhere in my mind, I would
love to see another woman
succeeding like I did.
But it's, uh, it's not easy.
It's not easy.
If I had won the world title,
I think, you know,
first of all, I would've been,
uh, so happy myself.
Of course, it would've been
a huge publicity, and, uh,
maybe encouraging more women
to participate.
But, um, you don't know, history
is history, and that's all.
She printed her name in
the history of rallying,
in the history of motorsport.
She competed on the same cars,
on the same tracks as the men,
and beat them.
I think that's something
very few women have managed
to do in any sport.
Her legacy is, uh, empowering women.
Awaking us men, how we
should be ashamed sometimes
how we underestimate women.
Michele, in her blood, she was born
to be a rally driver, definitely.
For me, it is like Mozart.
Maybe we have to wait another
hundred years to have
such female driver once again.
The world championship title
is not the most important thing.
20, 30 years, my name,
it will be forgotten.
But not the name from Michele,
because people will realise
it was something special.
(CROWD CHEERING)
Ah, no, I don't have nothing here,
but maybe there.
This is, uh, a small part
of the cups I have.
Michele and myself,
we are still friends now.
We phone each other, time by time.
We see each other when we can.
'82! Portugal!
It's always, always a pleasure.
Because we were living five years,
unbelievable five years together.
It's old, isn't it? (LAUGHS)
So this one is-
Oh, it's a big one.
It's a big one.
I think this one must be...
Yeah, it's, uh, Portugal, '82.
Yeah, this is Portugal.
I am not, uh, feeling like
exposing all that in my house.
You know, everything is for me,
so it's in my mind.
I don't need to see them every day.
This one is, uh, Pikes Peak.
It's gone, it's finished.
It's yesterday.
Really what I want is to enjoy today.
We lock, bye-bye cups.
(FRENCH DIALOGUE)
Of course, I'm proud
of what she achieved.
I think I'm proud that my mother
did something differently and can
be remembered as someone who
didn't follow the easy path.
Gwanny was a wacing dwiver.
(LAUGHTER)
(FRENCH DIALOGUE)
Being grandmother, it's a new role.
And I enjoy it very much,
and, uh, I try
to get, um, maximum time I can
to enjoy their presence, and um,
and it's, uh, just beautiful.
It's just beautiful.
(FRENCH DIALOGUE)
I just hope that I can
live long enough
to see them growing from young
children to young ladies, and uh,
to follow the way
they decide to live.
And I hope they follow their dream
the best way possible.
(FRENCH DIALOGUE)
(ABBA PLAYING: DANCING QUEEN)
AccessibleCustomerService@sky.uk
flashing images.
You know, in life, you have
to be always open to new things.
That means also for me
that everything is possible.
There is no limit.
My early feeling of speed
I can remember is skiing.
This was my dream because
I love speed, I love moving.
To go fast, it gives you
a little bit of adrenaline
because speed means a
little bit of danger.
And I think I like it. I like it.
Rallying is a race against
the clock, against the elements,
against yourself
and you have to be the best.
Tre, due, uno!
When the marshal waves the flag,
you are in your very own bubble.
(INDISTINCT INSTRUCTIONS)
It's just up to you:
your skill, your bravery.
Can you exceed yourself as a person?
I like the challenge of
controlling where you can go
in the limit with this,
I will say instrument...
..where it will become dangerous,
where it will become
that I cannot control.
You just need a slight little
mistake and you can end up in
a literally in a catastrophe.
So it can be very unforgiving,
very, very unforgiving,
but that is the beauty of it.
Unless you take risks,
there's no progress in life.
When Michele came on the scene,
all of a sudden the rest of the
rally world were thinking:
"We've got an issue here.
We've got a big problem."
They had to try and stop
this woman from beating them.
Rally driving was a sport
for men, not for women.
I don't like to be the first man
to lose against a girl.
(ENGINE REVVING)
I love challenges.
If somebody is saying something
you are not able to do that, bam,
I will show you that
I am able to do that.
You know, if you play,
you play to win.
I grew up in the south
of France, in Grasse.
I have a very lovely childhood,
with a lot of friends around and
my sister and, erm-
I was full of life,
ready for any action, maybe
the daredevil of the family.
She really had this special
energy that was really unique.
I mean, she's never tired.
You could ask her any time, "Let's
go there, at the end of the world."
"OK, when do we go?
I started to drive, I was 14 and
I wanted to move my father's car,
and with my friend in the
neighbourhood, they pushed me,
I started the ignition
and the car started
and I started to drive.
At that time, my father
was in the kitchen.
He could see his car going.
He said "Oh! Somebody
is stealing my car!"
My father was quite strict.
When he was saying something,
you know, you listened to him.
I think he wanted to set some
barriers, you know, to keep me
in the- in the rail, you know?
Because he knew my character.
For me a car was a way to be
free and to do what I wanted.
I had a fantastic life: partying all
the time, dancing, I love dancing.
Sometimes I could have
my father's Porsche 911...
..and when I was coming back from
dancing in the morning... (LAUGHS)
I was always looking for twisty roads
and trying to go fast maximum.
I never wanted to be a
rally driver at the time,
but my friend Jean,
he had a nice car.
He said, "I'm going to
Monte Carlo for doing a rally,
and it's the first time I heard
about motorsport competition.
He saw me so excited so he asked me
to co-drive for him in Monte Carlo.
I said, "Of course, why not?"
New adventure, you have to
go and, erm, wow, fantastic.
I have to say he was a
little bit in love with me,
but I was thinking only about
this opportunity, not about him.
I was 22, I even didn't
know what was a rally.
I discover everything.
Unlike most motor racing,
rallying is not a head to head
confrontation on a closed circuit.
The road to rally victory is much
more complex, yet this complexity
and the supremely difficult
conditions taken as a normal
part of the sport lure a galaxy
of drivers all over the globe.
Rallying was born I would say
beginning of the 20th century
with Monte Carlo since 1911.
It was an amateur sport,
anyone could take part.
Well, I mean anyone who had a car
which was not anyone...
..and Monte Carlo became
a real competitive event
from the 1950s and '60s.
Day or night, rally drivers press
on to the limit of their abilities,
crossing countries and continents,
competing over thousands of miles
in a few days.
It would have been a lovely
picture in the right weather.
It was an ultimate challenge
against the elements:
the mud, the rain, the snow, etc.
As drivers hurtle through
snow or mud clogged curves,
their co-drivers call out a
description of the road ahead
and possible unseen hazards
from a set of place notes.
Michele started as a co-driver.
and it was in 1973,
the first year of the
World Rally Championship.
Maybe it was fate.
I felt a big responsibility.
A good co-driver cannot win a rally,
but you can lose a rally
because of the co-driver.
I remember that it went well.
I was very happy.
It was a great experience because
I was doing something important...
..and I was excited of course.
My friend Jean was happy
with my work after Monte Carlo,
so we continued together...
..and my father was following us
all the time.
On one event, her father
arrived to watch,
and he saw the tyres
on the car were bald,
and clearly quite appalled at the
state of the car that she was
competing in.
Immediately he said,
"You are able to be behind the wheel.
I know you like to drive."
He said "I will buy you a racing car.
"I will pay for one year.
"If you are good enough you will
continue, if not you will stop."
My father, in fact,
loved cars since a young age.
In 1933, he had a sporty Amilcar.
I'm sure he would have loved
to drive in competition.
Unfortunately, the war happened
and he was captured
in the North of France.
He was a prisoner of war
for five years,
and of course it has changed
his life completely.
I think my father, through me,
realised what he has not been able
to do because he would
have loved to do that.
I didn't know what
I will be able to do,
but at the same time something is
saying, "Mm, yes. You will do it."
This was my first challenge.
Over two thousand women and a few
men supporters of women's liberation
braved a bitterly cold wind on
their march through Central London.
Women, join us!
The banners they carried
announced their four main demands-
free round-the-clock
childcare centres,
equal education
and job opportunities
(FRENCH SPEECH)
It was a great time for women,
I think.
The beginning of the big revolution
and the feminist movement.
(SONG IN FRENCH)
It was full of colour, you know,
short skirts, topless on the beach.
I mean, everything was free.
I didn't feel any barriers
or anything.
But it's true that you didn't see a
lot of women on the motorway driving
the car.
It was still, you know,
reserved for men.
And, of course, it was a sexist world
at that time.
Motorsport was a man's world,
a little bit like today, huh?
The drivers, co-drivers,
the engineers, mechanics,
they were all men.
Women were never taken seriously,
but my father didn't
think about that at all.
It was really incredible
what he proposed me.
He had so much trust on me.
When you realise afterwards,
you think really he build up
my career.
(BEEPING)
It's a first rally.
Of course, you are nervous.
I remember my foot
shaking on the throttle.
(FRENCH DIALOGUE)
My boyfriend Claude, he was
supportive, but not interfering,
not, you know-
I was sure I could trust
the advice he will give me.
Michele started her career
competing against women,
but there was not a lot of
competition among the ladies.
Very, very quickly Michele
understood that if she wanted
to progress in the sport,
she had to compete against men.
(INDISTINCT)
There is only three sports where
men and women can compete equally:
motor sport, sailing
and horse riding.
When you're in the car, nobody can
say it's a man or a woman driving,
you know?
You have to take the line, the
shortest possible always to go
the fastest.
You need to have the top level
to fight with, so until you are
matching with men,
you know where you have to go.
In the second year, my father wanted
me to go to Corsica and challenge
myself in a bigger event,
because Corsica was part
of the World Championship.
(APPLAUSE)
Anybody can do rallying.
This is the amazing thing about it.
As a privateer, you can
enter your round of the
World Rally Championship.
In rallying, you can put yourself
up against the best in the world.
I'm not sure how many other
sports you can do that.
Corsica is on asphalt and
it turns and turns and turns.
You never stop turning the wheel,
changing gears.
It never ends.
Physically it is exhausting
and your mind has to be clear.
You have the drops, so you
cannot afford one mistake.
It took nearly a week...
..starting in the morning
doing all day, all night.
I remember I was mixing coffee
and Coca-Cola to stay awake and
fighting all the time at the limit,
but it's fantastic, it's really
an adrenaline that is unbelievable
and when you're in competition,
you know,
you feel all the power of the car,
you feel the G-force, acceleration,
the braking.
All your muscles are very tense
because you are at the limit
of what you can really do
to control the car.
The car was going very well
in Corsica. I won my group.
My father was proud and me, too.
A little bit surprised.
People were amazed.
She had just started one year before
and finished in the first ten
in the World Rally Championship.
That was something very special.
They were convinced Michele
must be cheating somehow,
because how could she possibly
beat them?
Her car must have
more power or whatever,
improvements that are illegal,
so they asked the technical
scrutineers to check everything.
I knew that between my father
and my mechanic,
it was no way they could be
cheating for, for anything.
It was scrutineered and
checked by officials from the FIA.
They declared that my engine
was conformed,
so the rumour stopped immediately.
Of course you have a
little smile on your face.
Sometimes you don't have to speak,
you know, just to prove.
What was important for me is that
they accept me and that I was
treated like a driver.
This has been my
motivation all the time.
In '75 she has been
incredible at Le Mans.
It was an all-female crew.
They won the category, mainly
thanks to her drive and that result
attracted the sponsor of Elf.
The higher I was going, the
less women we find in the in
the championship.
In '77 I was driving a Porsche 911
and I had good results
but people were thinking how many
men, er, I have been sleeping with
you know, to be able to get this car.
At the end of '77,
I needed more sponsors.
Of course, I didn't want my father
to continue paying for me.
If you want to climb the ladder,
you have to progress.
Then I was called by Fiat to
do the full French Championship.
They were proposing me becoming for
the first time professional driver,
but I think if I had tested the car
before, I would have not accepted.
Physically, it was very, very
difficult: no power steering,
engine in front, very heavy
car to steer, so difficult,
you know, so painful,
my hand was full of blisters.
You didn't have to miss the gear,
if not,
you have, like, a electric shock
in your hand.
(FRENCH DIALOGUE)
I have suffered so much really,
I struggle a lot with this car.
This car was for a woman
the limit you can endure.
But I think it's with this car
that I learn how to go faster.
I was enjoying life all the time
between rallying, drinking,
smoking, partying a lot
and having a good time.
My father didn't give me any advice.
He was just there all the time.
But still I remember once,
he came close to me
and he just showed me the result,
you know?
He said
"You are eighth in the group."
I understood immediately, you know,
it means you have to do something.
After this rally, I decided to stop
completely smoking and drinking...
..except champagne.
The World Rally Championship,
it just got bigger and bigger.
Hundreds of thousands of people
would go out and watch
this spectacle, a real people sport.
This is the amazing thing about it,
it's a car that you can buy
in the showroom, and it's all about
selling cars, brand awareness.
Win on Sunday, sell on Monday.
The manufacturers really understood
that people could relate
to this kind of motorsport
in a way they never could
with Formula One.
ADVERT: The Escort is what
I'd call a driver's car.
For the man in the street,
he wants to see his car winning.
'Absolute left, 150,
flat left over brow.'
This is the kind of mistake
that's always going to be...
..the co-driver's fault.
(PHONE RINGING)
When I got the first message
from Audi,
a phone call,
but, of course, at home
nobody was speaking English.
I just understood 'World
Championship,' 'four-wheel drive...'
'Audi' and that's all.
I thought it was a joke.
When you ask what is Audi
at that time,
French people were answering
washing machine.
When I start at Audi,
'Vorsprung durch Technik.'
That was our slogan, and that
was OK, but the image was not.
We have had problems to sell
our cars.
Audi was secretly developing in
a quarry somewhere near Nuremberg
this car which had a turbocharger
and four wheel drive.
And then I received
an official letter.
Audi is producing the first vehicle
with the four wheel drive
ready for the World Championship
that Hannu Mikkola was engaged for
as the first driver.
At that time, Hannu Mikkola was
one of the best drivers in the world.
Hannu was a household name
in rallying.
and Hannu immediately saw
the potential.
Nobody had ever designed a
rally car like this before.
It was brave. It was bold.
It was unheard of.
Our goal was with the four wheel
drive and with the rally scene
to get the image like BMW
and Mercedes.
A director from Audi Sport
was a marketing specialist.
In his mind, what Audi want to have
is attraction for the public.
He was thinking "Oh, there is
a very good French woman driver.
"Even if she will not win...
"to have a woman in our team,
that will increase our image."
I was not nave, you know,
I am realistic.
Of course being a new manufacturer
in the World Championship,
you know, a woman will be more
publicity maybe for them.
But you know for me,
World Championship,
it's the top of the discipline,
so, of course,
(LAUGHS) of course, the answer
was very, very quick: yes.
Finally we started the new team.
It was very difficult
because there was no team
and all the mechanics who should
be specialist for the rallying,
we took from the production line.
Can you imagine?
I have to find a new co-driver.
It was clear they wanted to
have two females in the car.
I knew Fabrizia because she
has been a driver in Italy.
I knew that she changed
from driving to co-driving.
To be in a winning team is my life.
I need to be in a winning team,
and Michele was competitive like me.
The first time we arrived
in the workshop,
I think the mechanic wondered,
"What are those two women doing
here?"
Then they started to see
that we were quite serious.
(INDISTINCT SPEECH)
We clicked together very,
very easily and erm...
we had the same objective,
the same view.
She spoke perfectly French.
Oh, she was fantastic.
(INDISTINCT SPEECH)
When we started in '81,
we were the only women team
in the World Championship.
It was a very sexist world.
If you found women there,
usually they were on the podium
handing bottles
of champagne to the drivers.
You didn't find women in
positions of power within the team.
Yeah, it was male dominated.
Everybody was laughing:
they have got a woman.
They also were laughing
about four-wheel drive,
how stupid they are,
they will be the loser.
Michele was a surprising choice
for Audi in 1980.
This driver had never really
competed outside of France.
I must admit that I had some doubts
that she could be as quick
as the quickest.
The World Championship
is really a different world.
I was like an outsider.
My dream at that time I think
to be able to reach Hannu's level
to show them that they
were right to choose me.
In the '80s World Rally
Championship was 12 events
all over the world.
It was at night, it was at day,
sometimes thousands of kilometres.
It's literally the fastest person
down that stretch of road.
Each of those stretches of road,
those stages are combined,
and the person with the lowest
accumulated time wins the rally.
There were several manufacturers
competing,
Twenty professional crews
fighting in all conditions.
Every single team boss,
their main aim...
is bring home the manufacturer's
championship.
If after that, we can bring home
a driver's title, brilliant,
we've got the whole lot.
Early in the '81 season,
it's fair to say
it was a bit of a disaster
in terms of results.
The team was new, the car was new,
so it was a learning year
for everybody.
The early events were very
difficult for that car.
There were mechanical problems.
In terms of technology,
it was very complicated
and then on top of that there was
a huge expectation from the watching
world that this four-wheel-drive car
would deliver.
You know, if she failed,
all of the men were there
waiting just to point the finger
and say "Told you so, you know,
"she wasn't up to the job."
Suddenly, I was in the best team
with a new car and the best driver
in the world, Hannu Mikkola.
So what do you do?
I just have to fight
and it's what I did.
MAN: Audi Quattro!
It's always towards the
end of a season, San Remo.
Michele's getting better
and better and better.
The car is getting better
and better and better.
San Remo was very difficult
because it was
starting with one day on asphalt,
then it was two days on gravel,
then it was for one more full night
on asphalt.
The first stage is in asphalt
and for sure the Quattro was not
the easiest car to drive on asphalt.
The first leg, we were not
good enough.
I was not really happy
with my driving.
It's not easy to be faster.
It has been always a fight
between me and the car.
You try to find the perfect line,
you have to brake later.
Concentration, motivation.
That was the focus,
to find everything that
will help me to go faster.
In San Remo, gravel stages
was, erm, really fantastic.
We knew the car was very fast,
and we were really flying
and enjoying what we were doing.
The car has so much grip
and so much speed
that sometimes I felt my eyes
were going out of my sockets.
When it's working,
it's just fantastic.
It's like if you are
taming a wild animal.
So I went better and better on gravel
and then I took the lead.
To see all this big list
of top names behind you
was really impressive, but OK,
it's not finished.
You have to finish the race.
The shared ambition in that car
was incredible,
you know, Fabrizio was absolutely
on the same page as Michele.
They both wanted and they
both saw this opportunity.
We had the same thing in
our mind and it was to win.
We had a few stages to do, and
suddenly we heard a noise on the car.
Oof, at first I thought it was
the engine,
and then, no, I put my foot
on the brake
and the pedal went all the way down.
From the three minutes I was leading,
suddenly I was only 32 seconds
leading.
I was completely down and I felt
that all my effort, you know,
during these four difficult days
were for nothing.
At this stage, it was a
two-horse race
and Ari Vatanen was second.
Ari Vatanen was one of these breed
of flying Finns.
He was favourite to win.
What Ari Vatanen didn't need
was a girl getting in his way.
He'd said before the start
of the event
that he would not be beaten
by a woman.
He said you know,
the day I will be beaten by a woman,
I will stop racing.
I... if-if I've said that,
I then, I apologise
but OK, I could have said it
as a joke and now it has become-
I don't know if I really said that.
I apologise to Michele if I-
if I did that.
Yeah, sure. Her speed took me
and everybody else by surprise.
It put our our masculine pride
on a test.
We arrive in San Remo.
Of course, we were back on asphalt
where Ari's car was better
than my car,
so I knew that 30 seconds
was really little
and for Ari, I knew he was going
for it and he will not let me win.
I am not so sure, because we
have not the car for asphalt,
and they have a car for asphalt.
During the day, we sleep,
because the previous night
we have been driving and
the rally starts in the evening.
Instead of going to sleep,
we took a normal car and we went to
check all my notes in
this long stage again.
How I had the strength,
after those five exhausting days,
to go straight away to practice
for one more stage, I don't know.
The strength of Michele
was her character.
She was very demanding
with everybody.
With me, with the team,
but with herself, too.
And then impossible to fall asleep.
Your nerves are going over and you
want to sleep and you cannot sleep.
Trying to cope with all this
pressure, I even started to cry.
And at the same time, you think,
"No, I cannot give up now.
"The goal is there,
I mean you can win.
"You can be there."
When I woke up, suddenly,
my view of the situation
was completely different.
Suddenly, I was- Everything
was more clear, you know?
Not this gravel, so it's clear.
(INDISTINCT SPEECH)
I knew that going with the pressure
is when you make your mistake
and I said, "Fabrizia, we won't
make the mistake in this stage."
So we will start mentally like if
it was the first stage of the rally.
Maybe in the back of my mind,
I thought, like,
Michele would be easier to beat
than, for example, Hannu.
In a way, you try not to think
about it, you just go for it.
When you go flat out,
you can make a mistake,
and in San Remo, mistakes are
each corner waiting for you.
There was a long left-hand corner,
on the tarmac,
and I was so close to the wall...
..it just touched my tyre and,
and bent my steering,
and, oh, there we are.
The bubble had burst.
There was no doubting the domination
in the heat and dust of North Italy,
but Michele Mouton's consistent
performance gave her the
first ever win by a lady driver
in a World Championship rally.
It was just unbelievable.
It's a very great moment that
you remember in your career.
In your own country...
Oof, too much. (LAUGHS)
It was just too much for me.
At that time, she had awoken the
entire rally world by her speed.
The first ever woman winning a
World Rally Championship event.
If anybody had still some doubt,
then they had gone.
For me I was more proud
about my result
than really as a woman
winning for the first time.
I mean, this really,
I didn't think at all.
That was quite something.
Nobody ever dream of something
like that.
You see all these crews
of all these cars.
I remember with her mother
going there.
They say, "Holy cow,
all this for Michele!"
(LAUGHS)
# SWEET DREAMS (ARE MADE OF THIS) #
When I won San Remo, it was
a big surprise, you know.
For Audi, for sure, it was the
first victory was incredible.
They didn't think I
will be able to win.
If you look back at the original
contract,
it was a promotional contract
to put a lady in in the seat
and now suddenly, here
she was winning rallies.
This was above and beyond
what Audi had expected.
They were very happy.
We had to sign thousands
of autographs.
It was big news.
The newspapers were
full of Michele Mouton
being as good as a male driver.
It's a sensation.
Suddenly it was, you know,
a lot of press, media.
# Some of them want to use you... #
To sell more cars,
they need publicity.
# Some of them want to abuse you... #
I could understand, but naturally,
I didn't like that.
It was really too much for me.
Some journalists told me that we
were both of us quite attractive.
I could smash the men saying this.
I was fed up to hear
it was a woman who won.
We felt like drivers,
not women drivers.
It was end of the season
to sign for the new years.
The lawyers were there.
I sit at the table and they say
"OK, so we have the same contract
for next year." I said "No...
"It's very, very simple.
You just have to double it."
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
1982 was a very important year
for Audi.
The investment that Audi
would have made would've been huge
to develop this car and
had come through '81
with some success, but '82,
it was time to deliver.
They needed to win the championship.
I was feeling stronger as a driver.
We were all very positive
and very ready for the future.
Monte is traditionally
the starting place for every
World Championship campaign,
and it is one of the absolute
famous events that manufacturers
really wanted to win.
Now the biggest competition
was the Lancia team
and the Opel also with Walter Rohrl.
They were confronted by Walter Rohrl.
He's known as the computer.
He's an incredibly deep thinker.
First of all,
when I have done sports,
it was always one aim:
I want to be perfect.
He understood that Audi
had the upper hand
with this four-wheel-drive car,
so he knew consistency was key.
Walter was really,
I think ready for showing
that he could win
with the Opel Ascona.
We have a lot of respect
for each other, I think.
(ENGINE REVVING)
Tre, due, uno!
Of course, you know,
it's my home rally, you know,
so you always want to do well.
I think rally driving,
that is really car driving.
On race driving, you need
your elbows, you know?
In rally driving, it's very fair,
everybody
is going just alone against the
watch and the best one will win.
In the first stages,
we were among the three best.
But Monte Carlo is very special.
You can practice,
and it's completely dry,
and suddenly, it's full of snow.
I took the corner full speed,
like if it was no ice, and uh-
It was a very violent shock,
you know,
and some concussion for Fabrizia,
and for me, I have really
some twist leg and uh-
'82 season, it started very badly
for me.
It was Walter's event, you know,
he mastered it brilliantly.
And he drove a brilliant rally,
you know, a really
clever, tactical superb approach
to the event,
picked the right tyres
at the right time, and won.
You know you are driving with
a with the risk on your head,
and this is the challenge.
So many driver who has broken
the ribs, broken the spine.
There is a lot of accident.
The privilege of being young
is that you don't fear anything.
In the reality, you cannot
change anything.
I believe in fate,
for sure, for sure.
What is written is written, no?
(WAVES CRASHING)
One rally that I really love
is Portugal, but in Portugal,
there is a huge problem,
that is public.
So much public.
Right behind him and a
hot favourite for victory
is the leading Audi Quattro,
Hannu Mikkola.
Michele Mouton, Mikkola's
attractive French teammate
takes the opportunity
of warming up her racing tyres.
Portugal is one of the most
technically difficult rallies
in Europe.
You know, lots of corners
over crests.
There's no natural flow to the road.
You can't read the road.
Portugal, the battle was the
road and the crowd, really.
But rallying has always been
everyman's sport.
It's free of charge, your entire
family can go wherever in the
forest you want to go to.
You can be a few metres from
the cars.
Rallying had always been popular
historically in Portugal, and
in the 70s and 80s,
it just went through the roof.
These fans, they couldn't
envisage that the drivers
were ever going to get it wrong.
They all wanted to be close
to the cars.
They wanted to be part
of the action.
The fans would be trying to touch
the cars as they went through at,
you know, these insane speeds.
The mechanics would have to fish
fingers out
from where they've been
ripped off the spectators' hands.
It was madness, it was stupid,
it was crazy, but in those days,
it seemed to drive the popularity
of the sport on, I don't know why.
Fortunately, there were
no serious injuries here.
I mean, when you have to drive
through those conditions,
with people everywhere.
First, you are scared.
Then, you get used, because
they are there all the time.
And at the end, go fast.
You have to consider that they
are like uh, like trees, really.
To go fast in Portugal,
you need not to see the people.
If you start to think, you go home.
If you want to win, you
have to be the fastest one,
but at the same time, you know that
you are not allowed to do a mistake
because you will kill
twenty persons at least.
To do what we are able to do,
you cannot think about danger,
you cannot think about death,
you cannot think about anything.
You just have to concentrate on
this famous limit, being on the
edge of the razor, you know?
And you are not allowed to go off.
There is downhill 200 metres.
There are big trees, big like this,
they are not moving one centimetre.
You will destroy your car
and your life.
We were living with death,
and if you think about it,
you cannot do a good job.
(FRENCH DIALOGUE)
If you speak about Arganil,
anybody will tell you: fog.
It was mainly sure that
we will fog in this stage.
With Fabrizia, it was like something
unbelievable, the feeling.
I had the feeling that I could see.
I knew exactly the corner
according to what she was saying.
The difficult to co-drive...
..is to say the pace notes
in the good moment
in which the driver's mind
is free to understand the note.
Not before, not after.
She has to guess with her body,
she guess where you are
in the left, right corner.
There is moments like this where,
you know, everything is perfect,
everything is the way you feel
the car.
Even if she was saying a note,
I was going even faster than the
note that I could hear.
In Arganil, we were flying,
without seeing anything.
Walter was starting
one minute in front.
In the fog, you can see the
red light on the back of the car,
and I couldn't believe, you know,
I thought he had a problem.
She could see Walter ahead,
and she would've known immediately
that she'd taken a minute out
of him, because she started a
minute behind him.
And we won Portugal,
practically in Arganil.
It was incredible what Michele did.
(APPLAUSE)
She won by nearly 14 minutes.
And once again,
she showed she was cut from
exactly the same cloth as the likes
of Hannu Mikkola and Ari Vatanen.
For Michele Mouton and her equally
charming co-driver Fabrizia Pons,
a second world championship
triumph in only six months.
This one in Portugal, after a
superbly judged tactical drive.
No wonder the whole world
loves Michele.
All that brain power
and beauty, too.
Suddenly, you know, she was
beginning to build uh, some
momentum in terms of a
championship challenge.
I'm sure for Audi,
it was also a surprise.
I was suddenly having good result.
For Audi, it must have
been something, you know,
to think of, uh, what to do.
(FRENCH DIALOGUE, LAUGHTER)
Nothing for you Hannu, sorry.
Of course, '82 was given
for Michele Mouton
to help her to be world champion.
We all had this team spirit,
you know?
We wanted Audi to win,
and this was very strong.
To be in with a chance of winning
that is pretty phenomenal.
To then add to it the fact that
you're a number two driver,
and you're female,
it's another level.
Ah, you know, our relationship,
there was always a way.
I mean, um, rallying like we
do in the World Championship,
you are away 300 days a year,
so it's not so much left
for your own time.
During the year, it was growing up,
this fight with Michele.
By now, it was a two-horse race,
and it took some time for the
watching world to actually get
their head around the fact that
crikey, it was all about
Michele vs Walter.
Everybody was, of course, pushing,
I was under pressure,
and I said, "I don't like to be
the first man to lose against a
girl".
I am not diplomatic, I am
just telling what I'm thinking.
I don't like to be beaten by a
small girl from France. (LAUGHS)
Of course, at this time, you know,
rally driving was a sport for men,
not for women, pasta.
It's not about- I, you know,
I don't think about him.
Why you want I think about him?
I think about myself and it's enough.
You know, I have no time
to think about him.
He can do what he wants, you know?
It's not, uh, it's everybody thinks
for himself, not for the other one.
I said if you put a monkey
in an Audi,
he will go much faster uphill
than me.
I didn't mind, I mean,
he could say what he want.
Still, you have two other driver
in the team with the same car,
and you have to beat them.
All the comments,
they never touched me,
they never destabilised me.
I just wanted to win for the team.
The challenge of the Acropolis rally
is the terrain.
It's run across some of the
rockiest, roughest roads in Europe.
It's known as a sort of European
safari.
Rain has made the rally route
uncharacteristically muddy.
Drivers have to pick their way
around exposed rocks and stones.
Already this rally is all about
Michelle Mouton and the second
Audi Quattro, and with driving
like this, it's not surprising.
Unbelievable rally, you know.
The heat was crazy.
In the Quattro, it was 50
in the car.
I was losing between two and
three kilos for every 3,000km.
You have no time to drink or to eat
or to go to the toilet.
It was really tough.
I mean, you need to take
your overalls down,
you need to find a place,
where you pee?
Men, they just turn, and they do,
and me...
so I was learning not to drink.
Easy.
And then, you arrive,
end of the stage, and uh,
you even cannot talk,
you are thirsty, and, uh,
the photographers say,
"Can you smile?",
I mean, I could have killed
those people, you know?
So, of course, I had a reputation
of having a bad character
on top of being a woman. (LAUGHS)
I think it's mainly the way
she stares at people.
She's able to kill you
with her eyes.
(LAUGHS)
(FRENCH DIALOGUE, LAUGHS)
Michele Mouton has taken the lead
in her Audi Quattro,
ahead of Henri Toivonen
and the other works Opel.
Are you happy?
Yes, sure.
Do you know how far
behind Michele you are?
I feel like about
one and a half minutes.
Do you think you can catch
her up tomorrow?
Her? No way.
The ladies are too fast nowadays.
The last bend of the
1982 Acropolis rally
and Michele Mouton
storms to victory.
(CROWD CHEERING)
Winning Greece was really,
it was unbelievable.
You start to think,
"Wow, I won at San Remo,
"I won Portugal, I won Greece."
You feel stronger, you feel, uh,
much, uh, higher confidence
in yourself and, uh,
in the team and in your co-driver
and, uh, it's a very exciting time.
The penultimate rally was
Ivory Coast.
Of course, we knew that
if I was winning Ivory Coast,
I just had to finish the RSC Rally
in England and I could win the title.
Every event in Africa, I don't like.
I had no chance against Michele
in a four-wheel driven car.
Audi was a big favourite.
I think that Walter
was not happy at all,
because he loves to drive
where he can win.
I think we were all supporting
Michele.
I am too realistic to dream.
And so, I was not dreaming
that I could become World Champion.
I knew it was a possibility,
but not like suddenly thinking,
"Ah, I can be World Champion".
No, no, this is not Michele Mouton.
First you have to do the job,
and then you realise if you did
something good or not.
Ivory Coast is- It's wild,
it's nature, it's in the jungle.
The roads are incredibly muddy
and slippy and treacherous, and
it's a massively, massively
demanding event.
Of course, the situation
went a little bit different
the morning of the start.
At 7 o'clock, I got a
phone call from Claude.
He told me my father, he died.
Really, it was a big shock.
So, I was of course devasted and, uh,
I wanted just to go back home.
Suddenly, it was like
a blackout, you know.
For me, it was clear, I had to leave.
And I was ready to leave, ready.
Everything I did was because of him
and suddenly he was not there
anymore.
So losing him was really difficult.
My opinion was who cares
about the championship?
Go home, your mother needs you.
My mother talked to me,
and she said, you know,
"Your father will never like
that you stopped for him".
But then, of course,
I understood, and, uh-
So then you have to swallow
everything and try to start
the rally.
And, uh, it was really difficult.
And then I said that to Fabrizia,
and I said I don't want
anybody in the team to know,
because I didn't feel strong enough.
Normally, I like to suffer
in silence.
The event started perfectly
for Michele, and she did
manage to put all of that news to
one side, and she set out at great
pace, and built, you know,
a huge lead, 25-minute lead.
Of course, it's not been easy at all,
but I started to concentrate
on what I had to do.
Michele's mood, of course,
was terrible.
I did my best, but was not easy
at all, because what you can say?
Fabrizia helped me a lot.
Sometimes, I remember in
some places I was crying.
And, you know, she's very close
to me when you have the helmet on
and you can hear everything.
She has been very strong
and very helpful.
So one hour before Walter Rohrl,
so there was no doubt about it.
Take it easy, make it easy.
Suddenly, I could feel my
gearbox had some problem.
But just the beginning.
And I think we were supposed to
change the gearbox in 20 minutes.
And, uh, it went wrong.
It took more than forty minutes.
I think anybody sitting on
an hour and 20-minute lead
would've changed the gearbox,
because potentially
a gearbox failure
could cost you the rally.
And then, when I went back
in the car, no clutch.
We changed the gearbox,
and the clutch was not working.
And I have the two mechanics in
front of me, and I am screaming,
"It doesn't work! It doesn't work!"
In the beginning,
she was one hour in front of me,
and then I was coming up 50 minutes,
40, 30, 20, 10.
I mean, suddenly, you see
all your time going down,
and, of course, you are frustrated,
but what to do?
I mean, you know, if they made
a mistake, they made a mistake.
Having been more than an hour ahead,
she went out on the final day
behind Walter.
Of course, I remember,
I was, you know, so mad
about all of what happened
that I want to do it
for my father, and I felt
it was really something
that I will lose, you know,
not by my mistake.
Yes, yes, come on!
Yeah.
Yeah, we lost five minutes
for you yesterday.
Right. Alright.
I started to attack a little bit,
Fabrizia gave me a note.
There was a long straight,
and a sharp left at the end.
We were too fast, and-
That was really a big, big disaster.
You are out of the race.
So, at the end, I also did a mistake.
After this accumulation
of, uh, of circumstances.
I mean, uh, when we realised,
personally, I was crying.
I was crying, crying, crying,
crying.
Everybody was crying.
Walter was the champion.
The title, it was really never
in my mind, I think, at that time.
For me, the only goal was
I do it for my father.
It was over. It was a pity,
you know?
If she had finished,
she would be world champion.
But life is something very hard.
(LAUGHS) It is.
And for me, it was lucky, of course.
In my opinion, for me,
she is world champion.
But that's life, and uh,
we cannot change it.
After that, I flew directly back
home and my mother told me that
they will be waiting for me for the
funeral, and uh, so I arrive there,
but I was not strong enough
to go see him in the coffin.
When I left 15 days before,
he was, uh, washing his car.
I have the image.
And when I came back,
I didn't want to see him.
You know, I wanted to keep this image
of him washing his car.
I remember I gave him my gloves.
The loss of my father
was incredible at the time.
You know, for me, it was everything.
I mean, and I was young,
and it was the first shock
in my life for sure.
Because suddenly, you realise that,
you know, to be well-known,
to be a glory, to be rich,
to be everything,
what it means in life, you know,
it's love who is most important,
and when you lose the person
who is your hero,
because my father was my hero,
um...
..the rest is not important.
But he left with the feeling
that I will win.
Through me, he lived his own dream
and so at least
I have achieved that and
I know he was very proud.
It made me feel,
what about our relationship?
You know, if I want a family,
is he the right person and
start to think about all that.
The '83 season went well
for the team and for Audi,
because Hannu was world champion.
For me, it was a little
bit disappointing season.
You know, you have a season with
luck, and some seasons where
you don't have so much luck.
So when we heard that Walter
will join the team,
I was a bit disappointed.
Through '83, the feeling in Audi was
that Walter was a quicker driver,
and potentially more consistent.
With Hannu and Stig, we have
really a fantastic atmosphere
between the three of us.
When Walter arrived,
then it was, you know,
the team was really apart.
Actually, I don't know
why they needed Walter.
I don't know. I have not a clue.
That was, uh, to be honest, a
little bit against my opinion.
But it was the opinion of Audi.
Audi is in Bavaria,
Walter Rohrl is Bavaria,
he should be in our team.
My personal opinion
is that Audi probably
got the publicity they wanted
from an all-female team,
and they needed to change
their image.
And so Walter came.
Walter was arriving in the team.
I felt, you know, it was uh,
I really felt we were too many.
Like, if you feel you
are not needed anymore.
If you are a rally driver,
and if you are in a team,
you must be the leader,
otherwise forget it.
Michele didn't get a full programme.
For the first time in nine years,
she didn't do Monte Carlo.
It would've been hard for her
to take,
because she had delivered for them.
It's cutthroat and it's ruthless,
but it's what the sport's all about.
Business is business, so...
..either you accept,
and you do what they
tell you to do, or you don't
and you go.
This is the Audi Quattro,
and is usually in the hands
of one of the fastest people
in the world on four wheels.
Welcome to After Hours, Michele.
This way.
I'm shocked to see you so petite.
Why is it that you, a sweet girl,
can drive this huge car so well?
To drive a car, it's not
necessary to be a man.
I mean, the quality you need to
drive a car can be very feminine.
Once you started to drive well,
they couldn't say anything,
presumably.
Still, I don't know if
they accept it completely.
I'm sure forever, they will never
accept it, really.
In the height of the mid-80s,
the World Rally Championship was
rivalling Formula 1 for popularity.
It absolutely fired the imagination
of everybody out there.
We were dealing now with Formula 1
levels of power in the forest.
They were running on rocket fuel.
They were total and unbelievable
fire-breathing beasts.
And they just got faster and faster.
500, 600 brake horsepower.
They just oozed macho.
But they were a handful.
In '85, Audi wanted to develop
the market, you know, in America.
And we had to go to do
this famous hill climb
in Colorado, Pikes Peak.
We didn't know about this race
in Europe,
about the reputation of Pikes Peak.
It's part of American motorsport
fabric. It's an institution.
The big saying in Colorado Springs
is 'the mountain decides
who's gonna win,
the mountain decides.'
A family celebration reaching
across the generations.
Passing unnoticed among the crowd,
a world class rally driver,
Michele Mouton.
You are again in a man's world,
and, uh, really macho people,
I can say those ones have been really
macho people.
It was the first time
they saw a rally car,
a turbo-charged engine,
a first European, and
on top of that, a woman.
While Mouton is trying to set a
new course record in her rally car,
a dozen or more seasoned hill climb
veterans in their open-wheel racers
will be determined to see
that she doesn't.
I think she's really neat,
and I think she's pretty brave
to, um, go against all these guys
and stuff.
After the first day of the testing,
my times were already very good.
They realised that this woman is
arriving with something special for
them.
When we're sitting there lagging
with our wheels spinning,
she's going to be going forward
and I predict
she probably will beat
Al Junior's record,
so we've already started
working on stuff.
Alright, thank you Bobby.
Thank you.
During the practice training,
I was caught with excess speeding.
They give you a time penalty.
They wanted to slow me down,
for sure, it was clear.
..watch our times up here in
the dip. It's been a problem.
I think we've got the problem
worked out.
We're getting close to race time.
How do you feel as the
start time approaches?
The only problem we have now is
just to try to make no mistakes
from the start to the top, you know?
This is the only problem I have.
Try to be perfect.
Michele Mouton has walked
to the start line
because of pit driving violations
earlier in the week.
Despite the controversy,
she was ready to drive.
Pikes Peak is all about the start.
It's what you call a flying start,
you can build up a lot of speed.
So Michele was essentially
going from a standing start.
I thought to myself,
"Poor guys, you will see."
Because this gave me a boost
like never in my life.
Never I will lose this race,
and it's impossible.
Michele Mouton, against chicane 4,
lane 12 at 95 miles an hour
in that four-wheel drive
Audi Sport Quattro.
And still I went flat out because
I didn't want to lose anything.
Those famous four corners there
where the middle one, you have
to lift a little bit because
it's not flat out completely.
I decided not to lift.
So I pushed the throttle even more...
..and I was sure
that we were going off,
and when I realised it continued...
I swear, the next corner there,
I even brake later.
I was so determined.
You don't fear.
If not, for sure, you will not win.
Bravery is needed, even physical
force is needed, stamina is needed.
But Michele, she was able
to tame those monsters.
Mouton hit 97 miles an hour
at 16 mile,
and reached the top faster than
anyone in the history of the hill
climb:
11 minutes, 25.30 seconds.
It was really something
like a shock for them.
You know, big Americans thinking
that they are the best in the world,
and I was so happy that
I could shut their mouths.
Up to now, I'm still the only one.
For Audi for everybody in the
team, it's a very good result.
We are very, very happy.
This Audi story, we needed
to end it somehow,
and this was a good way to end it.
Once I had stopped, it was finished.
It's like if I had never
done that before.
From the beginning,
I had always in my mind,
that one day I will stop
for my personal life.
I was a journalist.
I'd heard about her, but I didn't
know really what she looked like.
All of a sudden, this dark girl
walks by, and I say wow.
She was very feminine.
Very nice girl, I wouldn't have
imagined her behind a, you know,
500 horsepower rally car at all.
I asked her to marry me the first
night, and she laughed it off.
So, I thought this really handsome
Swedish man
with blue eyes was completely crazy,
and uh,
so, of course, a relation started.
But Fredrik was very young
compared to me,
because we celebrated his
20th birthday when I was 32.
So I said, OK, this is not a
story that will last very long.
But then, you know, we were
really in love and, um,
then you say, why not?
Started to enjoy a little bit
more life, and, uh,
on the top of the world.
Suddenly, you met the right person,
and you want to build a family.
Michele said, "Fabrizia, Fabrizia,
I have to tell you something.
"I am pregnant.
I am awaiting a baby."
I said, "Michele, you will not
believe it, I am pregnant. too!"
"Je m'appelle
Jessie Johnsson-Mouton."
So, we were having the first
baby at the same time.
(BABY COOS)
When she did it and won
those rallies, '81, '82...
..it was kind of like, "Wow, Michele
Mouton's won- A female's won a world
rally".
That was like the watershed moment.
That was the opening of the
floodgates. The world's changing.
Who's gonna be the next one?
We thought it was incredible
what she did then.
For me now, it's even more
incredible,
because no-one's ever emulated it.
Michele is the only one, still,
the only woman to have set
a fastest time in the
World Rally Championship,
to have led a world rally,
to have won a world rally.
Near enough 40 years on,
no-one's got near.
Not even close.
Of course, somewhere I, you know,
somewhere in my mind, I would
love to see another woman
succeeding like I did.
But it's, uh, it's not easy.
It's not easy.
If I had won the world title,
I think, you know,
first of all, I would've been,
uh, so happy myself.
Of course, it would've been
a huge publicity, and, uh,
maybe encouraging more women
to participate.
But, um, you don't know, history
is history, and that's all.
She printed her name in
the history of rallying,
in the history of motorsport.
She competed on the same cars,
on the same tracks as the men,
and beat them.
I think that's something
very few women have managed
to do in any sport.
Her legacy is, uh, empowering women.
Awaking us men, how we
should be ashamed sometimes
how we underestimate women.
Michele, in her blood, she was born
to be a rally driver, definitely.
For me, it is like Mozart.
Maybe we have to wait another
hundred years to have
such female driver once again.
The world championship title
is not the most important thing.
20, 30 years, my name,
it will be forgotten.
But not the name from Michele,
because people will realise
it was something special.
(CROWD CHEERING)
Ah, no, I don't have nothing here,
but maybe there.
This is, uh, a small part
of the cups I have.
Michele and myself,
we are still friends now.
We phone each other, time by time.
We see each other when we can.
'82! Portugal!
It's always, always a pleasure.
Because we were living five years,
unbelievable five years together.
It's old, isn't it? (LAUGHS)
So this one is-
Oh, it's a big one.
It's a big one.
I think this one must be...
Yeah, it's, uh, Portugal, '82.
Yeah, this is Portugal.
I am not, uh, feeling like
exposing all that in my house.
You know, everything is for me,
so it's in my mind.
I don't need to see them every day.
This one is, uh, Pikes Peak.
It's gone, it's finished.
It's yesterday.
Really what I want is to enjoy today.
We lock, bye-bye cups.
(FRENCH DIALOGUE)
Of course, I'm proud
of what she achieved.
I think I'm proud that my mother
did something differently and can
be remembered as someone who
didn't follow the easy path.
Gwanny was a wacing dwiver.
(LAUGHTER)
(FRENCH DIALOGUE)
Being grandmother, it's a new role.
And I enjoy it very much,
and, uh, I try
to get, um, maximum time I can
to enjoy their presence, and um,
and it's, uh, just beautiful.
It's just beautiful.
(FRENCH DIALOGUE)
I just hope that I can
live long enough
to see them growing from young
children to young ladies, and uh,
to follow the way
they decide to live.
And I hope they follow their dream
the best way possible.
(FRENCH DIALOGUE)
(ABBA PLAYING: DANCING QUEEN)
AccessibleCustomerService@sky.uk