‘I didn’t win the title - but I did have a ball!’
EASTER Sunday dawned with the sad news that motor racing legend Sir Stirling Craufurd Moss had died aged 90 after a long illness.
Sir Stirling was universally acknowledged as “the greatest driver never to win the World Drivers’ Championship” and as “the King of Aintree”, where he achieved several of his most memorable performances on his regular visits to Southport and Merseyside in the 1950s.
Only recently, glowing tributes had been paid to Sir Stirling during a series of special parades to celebrate his 90th birthday – he was born on September 17, 1929 – staged at the world famous Goodwood Revival meeting.
Ill health for the past few years, following a series chest infection in 2016, had led to Moss retiring from public life and, although he missed the Goodwood tribute, his wife Lady Susie Moss, who was at his bedside as he completed his final lap, had been present to receive the accolades of the 150,000 fans present to acknowledge his amazing achievements.
The Duke of Richmond (formerly Earl of March) described Moss as a “God given talent” and “perhaps the greatest driver of all time”, sentiments that have been shared by dozens of motor sporting greats since his death was announced.
Current and six-time World Champion Lewis Hamilton spoke of sharing “special moments”, while former three-times champion Sir Jackie Stewart described him as “my ultimate hero” and Mario Andretti, title winner in 1978, said “He was a true giant in our sport.”
His World Championship Formula One record speaks for itself.
He scored 16 wins from his 66 starts.
He was runner-up in the Drivers’ Championship on four occasions (1955-1958) missing it by just one point to fellow Brit Mike Hawthorn in 1958 and third on three more (19591961) before a serious crash at Goodwood in 1962 brought an abrupt end to his international race career.
Famous all over the world for his remarkable record in all forms of motor sport from his early career in hillclimbs, through to rallies – a discipline he shared with his sister the late Pat Moss-Carlsson – endurance/ sportscars, including a win in the Mille Miglia, and finally in the Formula One and Grand Prix arena, Moss featured in two of the greatest days in motor sporting history when he came to Merseyside and raced in the British Grand Prix at Aintree.
First, on June 16, 1955, when Aintree hosted its first of five world championship Grand Prix, Moss hit the headlines, internationally and locally, by becoming the first Englishman to win his home World Championship Grand Prix, as a member of the Mercedes-Benz team, headed by the legendary Argentinian Juan-Manuel Fangio, and which used the former Thompson-Doxey Limited motor engineers Sefton Street, Southport premises as its headquarters for its gleaming W196 cars.
Our sister paper The Southport Visiter gave the event extensive coverage as the resort was besieged by fans from all over the country, anxious to see the famous race aces and their magnificent cars.
Readers were informed that the team’s drivers, including Moss and Fangio along with burly team manager Alfred Neubauer and car designer Rudolf Uhlenhaut, would be staying at the Royal Hotel, while the 24 Stuttgart-based mechanics were booked in at the Scarisbrick and Brunswick Hotels.
On race day, Moss and Fangio fought hard for the win, with the young Englishman taking the chequered flag by the narrow margin of two-tenths of a second.
There has always been talk that Fangio “gifted” Moss the victory that day and some years ago Moss admitted during a discussion at a Goodwood Festival of Speed: “Fangio is the greatest driver in the world. He could have easily come up and made it a different story. But being a sportsman, he allowed me to realise my greatest ambition.”
Two years later, in 1957, Moss, in a Vanwall he shared with Manchester dentist Tony Brooks (now the sole surviving starter from the race), provided the country with its first allBritish World Championship Grand Prix victory in the British (and European) Grand Prix staged at the famous Merseyside racecourse circuit.
Clearly Stirling was a wizard when it came to Aintree.
Apart from his history-making GP wins, he was also victorious in the first Formula Libre (track run in anticlockwise direction) and F1 races staged at the Merseyside track when it opened in 1954, both at the wheel of a Maserati 250F.
At each of these events he also won the 500cc class races.
In 1956 he was back in the winners’ circle with his Maserati in the Aintree 200 F1 race and repeated the performance in 1958, this time with a Rob walker Racing Cooper-Climax T45. and, when it was run in F2 form in 1960, in a Rob Walker Racing Porsche 718.
Soon after Moss’ nasty accident at Goodwood in 1962, the curtain was coming down on Aintree as an international racing circuit – but the “King” did return to Merseyside in November 2004, for a 50th anniversary event commemorating the circuit’s opening in 1954.
Driving a Maserati 250F in a special parade, other stars present included his 1957 Vanwall partner Tony Brooks, the late Roy Salvadori, a regular Aintree winner in a variety of races, and W.E.J.Bill Allen, a class winner at the Le Mans 24 Hours, who used to live in Cromer Road, Southport.
Perhaps most of all, Moss will be remembered as a fair, genuine, kind and generous gentleman on and off the track and someone who always found time for his legion of fans worldwide.
Back in the early 1970s he was kind enough to put pen to paper in a small article, describing his feelings and thoughts on never becoming World Champion, which was published in my book “Grand Prix Chronology”, a pocket history of World Championship
results 1950-1971.
Entitled ‘What the World Championship meant to me, Stirling Moss’, he wrote: “I took part in my first motoring competition when I was 17 years old, driving a BMW Sports car, and one year later managed to upgrade myself to single seaters.
“Right from the start I did my best to win, although I must admit that the idea of becoming a champion never entered my head at the time.
“Two years later I turned professional, and I suppose it was about then that the British Championship became my target. I was able to achieve this a number of times.
“However, I can well remember how much of a blow it was for me the first time I lost the World Championship to Mike Hawthorn.
“We had a year-long battle for points and I seem to remember that I came out on the wrong side by the narrow margin of one point.
“I think it was about this time I managed to get things in their right perspective.
“There was one aim that I wanted more than the title, and that was the respect of my fellow drivers.
“In other words, I wanted to go to the starting line, with my competitors feeling that I was the man they had to beat if they wanted to win.”
“During this period I had lost the Championship to Mike a couple of times and it just didn’t seem fair.
“Mike was an extrovert who always had fun, whereas I was a dedicated driver who did not drink, smoked little and led a comparatively quiet life.
“I remember thinking “If I can’t win the title, I going to darn well enjoy myself ”.
“So I did, and I relaxed my rather austere life. OK. I didn’t win the title, but I did have a ball!”
And that’s exactly what he did. He married three times, travelled all over the world and attended many historic events and reunions including those at Aintree, Silverstone and Goodwood (Festival of Speed and Revival) where he drove many cars in which he had won races.
He enjoyed meeting up with fellow drivers and enthusiasts who turned out in their thousands to see the legend that was Stirling Moss, truly the greatest driver never to win the World Championship.
A name that will forever be remembered with great respect in the world of sport. RIP Stirling Moss.