We’re kicking off a new feature here on JOE where we take a look back at some of motorsport’s greatest legends. So who better to kick things off than Sterling Moss, ‘the greatest driver never to win an F1 World Championship’.
Name: (Sir) Stirling Craufurd-Moss
Born: 17 September 1929
Age: 83
From: London, UK
Overall Career stats 1948 – 1962
Races entered: 527
Races finished: 375
Race wins: 212
F1 Career stats 1951 – 1961
Races entered: 66
Grand Prix Wins: 16
Podium Finishes: 24
Pole Positions: 16
Career GP Points: 185
F1 Championship wins: 0
Stirling Moss began his racing career at the age of 18, racing a Mini Cooper 500, but it was in 1955 when Mercedes-Benz, the famed “Silver Arrows”, would finally sign a young Moss to drive along side the champion Juan Manuel Fangio. That’s when things began to look up for the Brit.
Moss would win his first F1 Grand Prix with Mercedes at the 1955 British GP, becoming the first British driver to win the F1 at home. Sadly, this partnership wouldn’t last long as Mercedes-Benz retired from motor racing for a short time following the 1955 Le Mans tragedy, which you read more about over here.
It wouldn’t be the last time we’d see a Mercedes Benz bearing the Stirling Moss name, however. In 2009 the SLR Stirling Moss was unveiled and was named after the racing legend in homage to his glorious career.
Following on from Mercedes’ departure from motor racing, Stirling drove for both the Maserati and Vanwall teams. During the late 50’s and early 60’s, Stirling led the move to rear engined Formula 1 cars with the Cooper-Climax, achieving the first victory with a rear engined racer in 1958 at the Argentine Grand Prix with Rob Walker Racing Team, according to his biography.
As for one of his more famous victories, his 1961 Monaco Grand Prix win (his third win at Monaco) was, and still is, regarded as one of the greatest F1 races ever recorded. Take a gander at the BBC highlights below, and take note of how bloody dangerous it looks for the drivers, spectators and film crew.
Over the course of his racing career Stirling drove in 84 different makes of car, including Lotus, Vanwall, Maserati, Jaguar, Ferrari and Porsche in a variety of different formulae and racing events (Formula 1, Formula 2, LeMans etc.).
Sadly, Stirling’s racing career was cut short in 1962 when a crash at Goodwood in a Lotus in the Glover Trophy left him in a coma for one month and partially paralysed the left side of his body for six. Stirling decided to retire from racing the next year after feeling that he didn’t quite have the same control of the car as he did previously.
Even though he racing career was cut short, Stirling was regarded as one of, if not the, greatest driver of his generation and his playboy image managed to draw the beautiful women in – and they’re still coming, as you’ll see in the pic below.
The BBC produced a brilliant documentary on Stirling’s life, which featured everything you could ever want to know about the legend and to make matters sweeter it was presented by the equally legendary Patrick Stewart. You can, and should, watch it below.
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