THE race

Moss wasn’t the only driver injured during practice. Michael Taylor – also in a Lotus 18 – crashed when a steering-column weld failed at 260 km/h. Flung from the car, his body felled a tree, breaking several bones. Initially paralysed, he would regain the ability to walk.

And there would be worse to follow... In one of F1’s blackest days, two British drivers would lose their lives during Sunday’s race. On lap 20, Chris Bristow lost control of his Cooper-climax T51 at Burnenville, spun into the embankment and was flung into barbed wire fencing that decapitated him.

Five laps later, Alan Stacey died when his Lotus crashed and caught fire at the same corner, reportedly after he’d been hit in the face by a bird.