Stirling Moss
Stirling Moss never won the Formula 1 world championship. He finished second four times, third three times, and won sixteen Grands Prix. The consensus of those who raced against him — including the champions who beat him — was that he was the fastest driver of his generation, possibly of any generation. The reasons he did not win are among the most discussed questions in the sport's history.
Moss was the definitive gentleman racer of the 1950s — a period in which motorsport was conducted at speeds that killed routinely and in conditions that modern safety standards would make illegal. He drove for multiple teams, often simultaneously, in multiple disciplines, and treated each as a genuine competition rather than a career management exercise. He was fast in anything: Formula 1 cars, sports cars, touring cars, on road courses and in the Mille Miglia. His 1955 Mille Miglia victory — completed in ten hours, seven minutes and forty-eight seconds on public Italian roads — set an average speed record that was not challenged before the race was discontinued.
The championship that eluded him requires some explanation. He drove for smaller and less reliable teams than the dominant constructors, by choice — preferring a British car where possible even when the equipment was inferior. He also, famously, provided testimony in 1958 that helped rival Mike Hawthorn retain his championship licence after an incident, testimony that may have cost Moss the title by a single point in the same season. Whether this act of sportsmanship was a mistake or a statement of values is a question that does not have a clean answer.
A serious accident at Goodwood in April 1962, from causes that were never fully explained, left him in a coma for a month and paralysed on one side. He retired after testing a racing car the following year and finding that he was no longer at his former level. His subsequent life, largely in London, was spent as a businessman, enthusiast, and raconteur of genuinely compelling stories. He was knighted in 2000 and died in April 2020 at the age of ninety, having outlived most of the drivers he raced against and most of the cars he drove.
6 Things You Might Not Know
The 1955 Mille Miglia — a thousand-mile race on open Italian public roads — was completed by Moss and his navigator Denis Jenkinson in ten hours, seven minutes and forty-eight seconds, at an average speed of 157.6 km/h. The record has never been beaten because the race was discontinued after fatal accidents in 1957. Jenkinson pre-read the route on a paper roll to call corners; Moss drove from memory and instinct.
After a 1958 incident involving rival Mike Hawthorn, Moss provided testimony to the stewards that helped Hawthorn retain his racing licence. Hawthorn won the 1958 championship by a single point from Moss. Whether Moss's testimony directly influenced the result is impossible to confirm, but the proximity of the margin has made the story one of motorsport's most discussed examples of honour costing a competitor everything.
Unlike most top-level drivers who focused exclusively on Formula 1, Moss competed seriously in sports car racing, touring car racing, and rally events throughout his career. In some seasons he competed in more than sixty events across different disciplines and countries. He treated each as a genuine competition — not an exhibition — which is one explanation for the mechanical failures that hampered his championship campaigns in F1.
The phrase 'Who do you think you are — Stirling Moss?' became a common British expression for someone who thinks they are a better driver than they are. The irony is that the real Stirling Moss probably was as good as he thought. The phrase entered the language as a gentle mockery while its subject was being celebrated as the greatest driver never to win the championship he deserved.
Moss invested in London property from his racing earnings and developed a portfolio that sustained him comfortably through his long retirement. He lived in a distinctive home in Mayfair that he had designed with his architect, featuring a hydraulic lift and various technological innovations that reflected his engineer's sensibility. The house was sold after his death.
Moss was married four times and had a reputation for a social life that matched the period's appetite for glamour and speed. His final marriage, to Susie Paine in 1980, lasted until his death in 2020. He has said that his personality in later life — warm, sociable, enthusiastic about other people — was consistent with who he had always been, though the sport tended to project a more austere image onto its champions.