Stirling: One lap too many
Legend dies age 90
There was a time when all drivers pulled over for speeding could expect the inevitable quip from the police officer: “Who do we have here then, Stirling Moss?”
A highly skilled and patriotic titan, one of the biggest names in his or any sport, Sir Stirling has died aged 90 after “one lap too many”, his wife announced.
The legend died peacefully at home in the early hours of Easter morning, Lady Susie Moss said, following a long illness.
“He died as he lived, looking wonderful,” said Lady Susie, who nursed him at their home in Mayfair, Central London, throughout his illness.
“He took one lap too many. He simply tired in the end and he just closed his beautiful eyes and that was that.”
Sir Stirling was born in September 1929 to parents who met at Brooklands, in Surrey, the world’s first purpose-built “banked” motor racing circuit.
His father, Alfred, was a descendant of a family of Ashkenazi Jews known, until the end of the 19th century, as Moses.
Alfred, a dentist, was also mad about racing, competing at Brooklands in the 1920s and in the Indianapolis 500 while studying in the US.
His wife Aileen also entered races in her own threewheeled Morgan.
Stirling was born in West Kensington, London, and first lived in Thames Ditton, Surrey. Two years later, after the birth of a daughter, Pat, the family moved to Bray, Berks, where Sir Stirling and his sister rode horses competitively.
He was educated at Clewer Manor and Haileybury School, Herts, where he was first subjected to antisemitic bullying. But he never told his parents, instead using it as motivation to succeed.
When he was nine, his father bought him an old Austin Seven, which he drove in the fields surrounding his home.
He got his driving licence at 15 and, with £50 from equestrian winnings traded the Austin for a Morgan. It was followed by an MG in which, aged 17, his mother caught him with one of his father’s dental receptionists.
Sir Stirling’s motor racing career began when he was 18, and seven years later he won his first Grand Prix.
Between 1955 and 1961, he finished runner-up in the title race four times and won 16 of the 67 Grands Prix he entered.
Sir Stirling was regarded as the best driver in the world never to have won the Formula 1 World Championship.
The world famous driver lived a fast
life off the track, too, cutting a James Bond-like glamour figure in the playboy motor racing world.
And in his Mayfair home could be found gadgets as impressive at the time as Bond’s: TV screens popping out of the ceiling and a self-playing piano.
Sir Stirling also had a cabinet full of green and black scrapbooks. The green ones were for his racing life and the black ones his “crumpet”, he joked. Of his
I kept one eye on the track and one on the pretty girls in crowds
STIRLING MOSS ON HIS PASSION FOR THE LADIES
for the ladies, he admitted keeping “one eye on the track, another on the gauges and still be able to spot a pretty girl in the crowd”.
He married his first wife, Canadian brewer’s daughter Katie Molson, in Mayfair in 1957.
That marriage only lasted three years and in 1964 he married glamorous American Elaine Barberino, with whom he had a daughter, Allison. But four years later they too were divorced.
His third wife was Susie Paine, who he had known since she was five years old, as her father was an old friend. They had son Elliott in 1980. Sir Stirling said: “When we got married she was 27 and I was 50. I know some people might think that is quite a big age gap, but, frankly, we have never noticed it.”
Another time, he said: “I met my first wife in a romantic way, looking across the track at her at Le Mans.
“I met my second wife in America and we stupidly got married when neither of us were ready. We were too different: she’s a swinger, she likes going out night-clubbing, and I don’t. I’ve got the best wife in the world now.”
Sir Stirling raced during the most dangerous era in the sport but was known for his sportsmanship and patripenchant otism. He said at one point in his career: “Better to lose honourably in a British car than win in a foreign one.”
Sir Stirling’s career ended in 1962, when he was 32, after a horror crash at Goodwood left him in a coma for a month.
But he continued driving at legend events until the age of 81. He was knighted in 2000, appeared at the Mirror’s Pride of Britain and from 2007 to 2010, he lent his voice to kids’ TV show Roary the Racing Car, narrating at the start and end of each episode.
It is believed his death is linked to a
chest infection caught on a cruise in Singapore in 2016.
Stars of the motor racing world yesterday paid tribute to the legend.
World champion Lewis Hamilton called Sir Sterling his “incredible comrade”. He said: “It was such an unusual pairing, our friendship. Two people from different times and backgrounds but we clicked.”
Former driver Martin Brundle tweeted: “A mighty racer and gentleman. He had such great stories to tell, and it was a privilege to know him.”
A mighty racer and gentleman... he had such great stories, he was a privilege to know
MARTIN BRUNDLE FORMER FORMULA 1 RACING DRIVER AND COMMENTATOR