The people’s champion
Sir Stirling Moss was the greatest driver never to win an F1 championship
Supposedly impartial, motorsport writers are not meant to have favourites. I couldn’t help but make Stirling Moss one of mine since he was my father’s hero and had nished third by pushing his Jaguar C-type across the line at the
rst motor race I ever saw. It was beyond all imagining, at the age of seven, that I would have the privilege of one day getting to know him.
Our professional paths rst crossed in 1977 when I was writing for James Hunt Magazine. Searching for feature ideas for this fanzine, we thought it would be a good idea if James and Stirling sat down to discuss their respective lives as racing drivers. A meeting was arranged at Zandvoort on the weekend of the Dutch Grand Prix and Stirling was there as an ambassador for First National City Travelers Checks, a sponsor of the Tyrrell team.
It was a fascinating discussion. They had much in common, particularly on the subject of women and fast cars! But I remember Stirling being quite shocked when James openly admitted to thinking a great deal about getting hurt in a racing car.
“That’s a very interesting point,” said Moss. “The cars I was driving were far less sophisticated. I’m not going to say more dangerous because danger is where you’re going to make it. Let’s face it, there’s nobody making you go fast. The safest car in the world is a racing car … until you race it.”
Moss liked the element of danger – in nitely more potent in the 1950s and ‘60s than it is now because, he said, it gave his driving an edge. That much had been evident in All But My Life, the biography of Moss written by Ken Purdy in the ‘60s; way ahead of its time and one of the best motorsport books you will ever read. The American sports writer spent many days in Moss’ company as he recovered from the accident at Goodwood that ended his racing career in 1962.
Purdy described Moss’ London home; a townhouse tucked away in Mayfair where he lived until his sad passing in April. Even back then, the ve- oor property was bristling with electronic gadgetry, some of which would still be considered radical today. It was typical of Moss the perfectionist. I was fortunate to see it for myself in December 2012 while having a wonderfully informal chat over lunch with Sir Stirling about his career.
Of the many topics I wished to cover, the one that intrigued me most was something he did at the end of the 1958 Portuguese Grand Prix on the streets of Oporto. Having been runner-up in the championship three times, he was ghting it out once more, this time with Mike Hawthorn. Stirling won the race in his Vanwall, with Hawthorn
nishing second in a Ferrari that was almost without brakes. Hawthorn spun and stalled on the last lap but managed to get going again, a fact Stirling had witnessed on his cooling down lap.
Of cials then excluded Hawthorn on the grounds that he had bump-started the Ferrari on an incline while going against the
ow of race traf c. Unprompted, Moss went to see the stewards and pointed out his rival was not on the track but the footpath when the alleged infringement took place. The of cials agreed and Hawthorn received his six points. Two races later, at the nal round in Morocco, Hawthorn would beat Moss to the title by a single point.
When I suggested to Stirling that perhaps he had regrets about such a chivalrous action, he looked at me as if I was speaking a foreign language. “No, certainly not,” he said briskly. “I can’t see how this is up for debate. Mike was not on the circuit. The question of the championship just didn’t come into it.” Those words were spoken, not for heroic effect, but with a mix of incredulity and sincerity. The stewards were wrong and Hawthorn was being hard done by. End of story. Can you imagine a driver doing such a thing today?
Can you also imagine a contemporary driver being able to keep his telephone number in the public domain? That was the way it was with SC Moss, Shepherd Street, W1 for more than 60 years in the London Telephone Directory. World champion, maybe not. But, without question, a people’s champion in every way.