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Vale Sir Stirling Moss

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Roar Guru
12th April, 2020
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Sir Stirling Moss has died at the age of 90 after a long illness. He was a true gentleman and a legend of motorsport.

I say ‘motorsport’ as a whole rather than just Formula One because Moss drove in several categories across his career. He competed in 529 races from 1948 to 1962, winning 212 of them. This was an age where you would see drivers like Moss compete in as many races as possible.

Moss is widely regarded as the greatest driver never to win a world championship, finishing runner-up four years in a row from 1955 to 1958.

He could have won a world championship if not for an excellent piece of sportsmanship at the 1958 Portuguese Grand Prix. Mike Hawthorn’s Ferrari had spun around, but Hawthorn was able to continue and finished second.

However, after the race the Ferrari driver had the threat of disqualification hanging over him as the officials accused him of restarting in the wrong direction and thus breaking the rules. Moss witnessed the incident and defended Hawthorn such that his rival kept the seven points he earnt for finishing second and setting the fastest lap, gaining a bonus point.

This would eventually come to cost Moss the world title, which Hawthorn won by one point despite winning only one race to Moss’s four.

Moss admitted that his determination to win races was more important to him than winning titles.

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“As far as I’m concerned, any driver who’s worth the name tries to win every race,” he said. “Eventually the world championship ceased to be very important to me.”

Moss won 16 grands prix in his Formula One career.

Away from Formula One, Sir Stirling drove his Mercedes 300SLR to victory at the Mille Miglia, the famous Italian sports car time trial, in 1955. With the abandonment of the race in 1957 after the death of several spectators, Moss’s record-breaking win will stand the test of time as the only Brit ever to win the event.

That same year, Moss drove in the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Mercedes grand prix teammate Juan Manuel Fangio. They were leading the race when Pierre Levegh, driving another Mercedes, crashed, killing 83 spectators as well as himself. Mercedes withdrew all their cars afterwards.

Sir Stirling did have success at Le Mans, taking a class win in 1956. Other endurance wins came at the Sebring 12 Hours and the 12 Hours of Reims.

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A brilliant multidisciplined career came to a forced end after Moss crashed in a non-championship F1 race at Goodwood on Easter Monday 1962. His subsequent injuries forced him into retirement, although he continued to race in historical car races until fully retiring in 2011 at the age of 81.

In his retirement Moss wrote books on the sport and remained an active voice until his withdrawal from public life after falling ill in 2016.

Former F1 driver and now Sky F1 commentator, Martin Brundle, led tributes to Moss on Twitter, saying he was “a mighty racer and gentleman”.

Sky F1 lead commentator, David Croft also paid tribute, saying, “Sir Stirling Moss was among the best of the best, on and off the track and didn’t need a world championship to prove it.”

Vale Sir Stirling Moss.

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