Stirling Moss was a synonym for speed

MOST of us have probably been asked the following question at least once in our lives: who do you think you are, Stirling Moss? It doesn’t matter that he retired nearly sixty years ago. Who he was, what he did and what he represented for people, has stood the test of time.

Once linked to incredible speed and feats of derring-do – nobody is much linked to feats of derring-do these days, are they? – his name has rung through the ages and broken out beyond the confines of the sport which he made his name.

It’s because of this that your father – who finds nothing more tedious or detestable than a Grand Prix (“driving around in circles”) – knows about Stirling Moss. That’s why he’ll ask you if you think you’re Stirling Moss if he feels you’re driving too fast. Moss was, is and will continue to be the epitome of speed.

For a lot of people it comes as something of a surprise that Moss never actually won the World Championship, despite his synonymity with speed itself. That his failure to land the big one never dimmed his star tells you all you need to know about Moss, who passed away last weekend at the age of ninety.

Being known as the greatest to never win a championship might have been enough to break a lesser man. It never did Moss, who remained, even into his eighties, a regular fixture at Grands Prix. Ever affable with a ready quip and quote, laugh and smile.

His heyday in the fifties was a world away from modern F1 and modern sport more generally. It was a time when the phrase gentleman racer meant something and Moss was a gentleman to a fault. As several of the obituaries to the great man noted this week he would have been world champion had he not been such a decent chap (to use the parlance of the time).

In 1958 he went to bat with the stewards for Mike Hawthorn who had been disqualified from the Portugese Grand Prix. Moss’ testimony got his fellow English man reinstated. When the final points were tallied at the end of the season Moss lost out by single point to the Ferrari man. He had, in effect, cost himself the title. Needless to say, it wouldn’t happen today.

Still though we’d be willing to wager that most of you have never heard of Mike Hawthorn. There’s more to sport and to life than winning. Moss’ legend proves it.