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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 naïve, 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)

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