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Michèle Mouton: Queen of Speed, a new TV documentary, shines a light on the rally driver’s genius
WORDS ALANIS KING
BECAUSETHEYDON ’TMAKE ’EMLIKETHEYUSEDTO
PHOTOGRAPHY McKLEIN
Rallying back in the day was not just an extreme sport for the drivers, but the spectators too
It was only a few minutes into Michèle Mouton: Queen of Speed that I started to get emotional. The feeling only got stronger as Mouton, recalling her legendary rally career of 40 years ago, said two simple sentences: “Motorsport was a man’s world. A little bit like today, eh?”
A little bit like today.
Queen of Speed, a new Sky Original documentary, follows Mouton as she stunned the world – and her male competition – in the World Rally Championship during the Seventies and Eighties. The documentary opens with a blue-tinted montage of snowy mountains and clips of Mouton speeding through untamed terrain, her voice echoing: “In life, you have to be always open to new things. That means also for me, that everything is possible. There is no limit.”