Michèle Mouton, full time rally driver for Fiat France in 1978
It started with a Lancia Stratos in the Monte Carlo Rally
Fiat France's program for Michèle Mouton and for Jean Claude Andruet in 1978 was the French Rally Championship. André Chardonnet found the Mouton-Conconi women's team very sympathetic and put them the Lancia Stratos ex- Darniche for the Monte Carlo Rally. The ladies started again from Paris on January 21. It snowed heavily the week before the rally, but all 216 participants reached Gap on Sunday evening. The real work started on Monday morning. Michèle Mouton started cautiously in the first chrono stage and always finished seventh place in the next four stages. At the end of the day Michèle was seventh in the standings; Guy Frequelin and the Renault 5 Alpine was leading. The longest stage started on Tuesday. Weather conditions continued to affect the race, forcing organizers to cancel three chrono stages due to avalanche dangers. Michèle did well and even came third for a moment. She then made some mistakes in the special of Barthélemy and Saint Jean-en-Royans and finished ninth each time. She was able to recover and scored two second place and third place in the five final stages of the etappe. That brought her back to seventh place in the standings. On the next day, among other things, the Col de Turini has to be raced twice, chrono stages 22 and 26. Michèle Mouton now had enough feeling about the handling of the Stratos and in the first climb she ended third behind the eventual overall winner Jean Pierre Nicolas and his private Porsche 911 and Guy Frequelin. She was second in both climbs of the Col de Madone; the first time within 2 tenths of Walter Röhrl and his Fiat Abarth. That put the ladies-team seventh in the final rankings and again a win in the Coupe des Dames.
French and European Rallychampionship
A month later, Michele Mouton took part in the Ronde de la Giraglia in Corsica now with Fiat Abarth starting number 2. The Fiats from Andruet and Mouton were not the favourites on the narrow winding roads. The Lancias from Darniche and Serpaggi with more HP and less weight were that. And indeed, in the first chrono stages everyone experienced the supremacy of the Lancia. But just before the end of the first stage, they both had to end the rally. The path to overall victory was open for Andruet and his female co-pilot Biche. The six-year-old Alpine A 110 1800 of Jean Pierre Mazagol was slightly faster than the bulkier Fiat on the narrow roads. Unfortunately, Michele had to end the rally too early after spinning off the road.
Things improved after this r. Mouton finished fourth in the Rally Jean Behra and then took the podium in the Ronde Limousine, the Critérium Alpin and Rallye de Lorraine. She was always third behind the continuous duel between her teammate Andruet and Darniche in the Lancia.
Ronde Limousin
For the Ronde Cévenole on June 3, the Fiats of Andruet and Mouton had lost weight as much as possible: removal of the co-pilot's seat, navigation equipment, and others. It was still not enough to stay ahead of the Lancia, despite a very fast fifth lap from Andruet. Michèle had to give up. Fourteen days later, Mouton finished third again in the Rally d'Antibes, again behind the Stratos of Darniche and the Italian Atillio Bettega.
A great win in the Tour de France !
And then the Tour de France in mid-September, rally counting for both the European and French championships. The rally started with a prologue around Biarritz on September 16 with seven chrono stages. Michele started (car #4) quietly as usual with two sixth places and one seventh place. When her colleague Andruet crashed his Fiat in the fourth stage, the accelerator was pressed a little deeper. At the end of the prologue, Bernard Beguin and his Porsche were 52 seconds ahead of favourite Bernard Darniche and Mouton in third place at 3 minutes 39. After a short break, the second stage from Biarritz to Cahors started with a speed test on the Nogaro circuit and a chrono ride on a course unknown to all participants. On the track, Michele losst some time with the heavy Fiat, but more importantly, Beguin had to retire with a broken gearbox and Jean Ragnotti also had to pull over. She remained in third place behind Darniche and Jean Hug Hazard (Porsche), who took second place twice. The third etappe went from Cahors to Limoges. Darniche-Maher won chrono stages 10 to 15. Michele had to deal with Jean Pierre Nicolas and his Ford Escort and Jean Louis Clarr with an Opel Kadett. At the end of this etappe she was fourth in the general classification; she had some issues with a flat tyre and no good spare available.
After an hour of rest, the rally moved from Limoges to Villeurbanne. There was no limit on Darniche in the eight chrono stages; he remained the leading driver. But Michèle 's Fiat finished second in every stage. Nicolas had to give up and Clarr drops to fourth place. From Villeurbanne up to Valence. In chrono stage 30, Les Clefs and stage 31 Meru, Michèle managed to stay ahead of the Stratos. The Lancia was gradually having problems. In the last stage towards Nice the cylinder head gasket failed for good and the Lancia came to a standstill. Michele Mouton Michèle Mouton and her navigator Francoise Conconi won their second rally after 72 hours of driving and five hours of sleep! She even received congratulations from the wife of President Giscard d'Estaing and from the Minister of Women's Affairs. Michele herself remained with two foots on the ground. “There is no reason to be surprised to see a woman win, because the Tour Auto, as a long-term event, calls for as much, if not more, reflection than attack." In the days that followed, she made the front page of the national press and she was asked to appear on 53 television shows. However, this win had a downside because she was asked to embody a certain idea of woman that she is not. "This victory started to bother me. I was annoyed. I especially hated the photographers who opened the door at the end of the specials to ask me to smile. That's why people always said I was in a bad mood. I had just made an effort and laughing with a sweaty head after an effort was not the moment for me."
Giro Italia and tour de Corse
With this victory, Fiat France thought it would be a great publicity stunt to participate in the five-day Giro d'Italia Automobilismo in October. It was a four-day competition combining circuit racing and a hill climb competition, with the fifth day being a rally with eight chrono stages. After the first test on the Monza circuit, it was already clear that Michele was bored. The connection-road between two circuits was very long and racing a Fiat on a circuit was not really her thing. She recovered a bit and on the second day after four circuit tests and so she became seventh in the standings. The mood in the car dropped again on the third day, because the intercom was broken, meaning Francoise Conconi could not make any contribution. Yet they climbed to fifth place while a battle was fought at the front between Finotto's Porsche 935 and Marku Alan’s Lancia Stratos. Michele went all out on the last day, the Ciocco round. Not much could be done against the horsepower of the Stratos, but Michele was consistently in the top 5 on every chrono stage. The end result : fourth place.
More serious work took place in November Tour de Corse. There were two drivers who wanted to win here, that were Andruet and Darniche both in a factory Fiat Abarth 131. A win here for both of them meant also winning the French rally championship. Outsider Sandro Munari won the first two stages, but from the third stage Andruet took the lead. In the fourth SS Andruet and Darniche were evenly matched. In the 99 kilometer non-stop Moca-Abbazia stage, Jean-Claude won again, with a lead of just over 1 minute over Darniche. Before the start, Darniche was already two minutes and one second behind the leader Andruet. Third was Munari with more than five minutes behind. Something went wrong with the assistance. Andruet complained about a problem with the gearbox or the clutch, but there is just enough time to get Darniche and Munari's Fiat to the bridge.
The next morning Munari won the first stage. Andruet counteracted this in the 98 kilometer non-stop sector of Saint Antoine with a sixteen second lead over Darniche. And this despite a stop to close his poorly fixed bonnet, an Incident that costed him about thirty seconds! At the service point, he was again concerned about a noise in the transmission or gearbox. The technicians discovered a defective coupling that had to be replaced. The operation tok longer than expected. When Jean-Claude and Biche got going again, their two-minute lead had turned into almost four minutes behind. But Andruet was not defeated. He attacked like crazy, but a flat tire ended his effort. Andruet ultimately finished fourth and Michele Mouton finished fifth. It all took a turn for the worse, because Jean Claude was angry that team boss Audetto has done nothing to help him win, especially since a victory for a Frenchman would be a great commercial success for Fiat. Andruet decided not to participate in the rally de Var, the last of the season. That the reason why only a small number of cars were registered for the Rally du Var in early December. Francis Vincent won with his powerful Porsche Carrera and Michele finished second at 3 minutes. She was classified fifth in the European Rally Championship and in the French Rally Championship.
Also read
- The beginning :click here
- The year 1975: click here
- 1976 and 1977: click here
