michele mouton retrospective

[David Eaton]

following is michele talking of her greatest memories in
motorsports (from autosport):
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Michele Mouton is the only woman to have won a World
Championship rally and, in 1982, come very close to winning
the championship itself following three more outright wins.
She was born in Grasse and began rallying in 1973 with a
Renault Alpine. Her first event was the Paris-St Rafael,
solely for women, and then the Tour de France, contrasting
two levels of competition on the advice of her father. In
1976 she became semi-professional with Elf in an Alpine
A310. She joined Fiat in 1978 and Audi from 1981-1985. She
drove with Peugeot at the end of the Group B era in 1986
before the birth of her daughter, Jessie. Most recently, she
has created and organised the Race of Champions.

I could have chosen three events for this. It is very
difficult to pick just one, you know. Every rally is
different, always changing and always something new.

Throughout my career I tried to get higher and higher, but
making progress slowly. Corsica in 1986 was my comeback
event, on asphalt, with Peugeot. I only did half of the
first etape, but I was back in a top car and as I was third
when I retired, it proved to me that I was still at the top,
on the pace.

It was really fantastic, good for my self confidence. With
Audi, we never had a chance to do Corsica, so it was hard
work, especially after such a gap. It was very big
satisfaction for me.

There was also the RAC Rally in 1982 when I finished second
to Hannu. It had been a terrible fight all the time with
Henri Toivonen and I didn't have any pace notes that could
help me. It was the car and the driver, full stop! This was
real rallying, a driver and a car on a road that you don't
know. Improvisation!

You never knew where you were throughout the event, you just
go and go and go! It was very foggy and I had to work very
hard just to stay on the road. I remember one stage when the
finish was just in a corner and I saw the marks made by
Henri. Oy, oy!

Suddenly I was on those same marks and I thought: 'This is
it, it is finished!' I had never been frightened so much,
not knowing how to drive in those conditions. Arne Hertz had
tried to teach my co-driver, Fabrizia, how to read the maps,
but I couldn't trust them at all.

But the most important rally for me must have been the San
Remo Rally of 1981.

This was not because it was a woman winning, but for me, as
a driver, it was the first time that I realised that I could
be at the top. I knew then that, if I won one event, I could
win others.

It was a big fight with Ari Vatanen all the time, but it
meant that I now knew that I could win.

As usual in San Remo, it was all decided on the last night.
I had finished the previous etape in second place, 32
seconds behind another Audi, driven by Michele Cinotto.
Walter Rohrl was third.

We had finished the gravel stages and had driven back to San
Remo for some rest before the final night's tarmac stages.

I could not sleep, not at all. All the time I was thinking
that I had Ari Vatanen behind me and that he was driving for
the World Championship.

It was an impossible situation. I asked a friend to try and
find Etienne, Audi's blind osteopath, to help me to sleep,
get some rest or just relax. Usually I have such a strong
character. In a rally I can just close my eyes and sleep
whenever I need, but not this rally.

Luckily, Etienne was found and he put his hands behind my
neck and boom, I was asleep.

I knew what I had to do. Ari would try very hard, so would
I, but I had to try and drive as though there was no
pressure at all.

There was only a few seconds between us, we had broken a
brake caliper between two stages and Ari was so close. I
told Fabrizia that this was the first stage of the night and
that one of us would not finish the stage, both of us were
trying so hard.

I told her that we would have to drive as though it was the
first stage of the rally, not just the first of the final
night.

We reached the service in the mountains and waited for Ari.
And waited.

Ari had a big problem. He was chasing the title and second
would have been enough for him to win it. But finishing
second behind me was, for him, nothing, so I knew he would
be trying everything to beat me on these last stages.

Then we heard that he had crashed, hit a rock hidden in some
grass and got three punctures. It was all over for him but
he still finished seventh.

I don't even know what the gap was now to the second placed
person. All I had cared about up to then was Ari.

It was good for me to have to work out the tactics in that
situation, to drive in such a way as not to feel so much
pressure.

It took a long time for it to sink in, for me to realise
what I had done. As a driver, just to feel that I had been
able to cope with that pressure, was very important.

But I would never want to have to go through that ever
again!