Stirling Moss

Sir Stirling Moss MBE (born September 17, 1929 in London) is a British auto racing driver. His success in a variety of categories placed him among the world's elite; he is regarded as the greatest driver never to win the Formula One World Drivers' Championship.

The son of Alfred Moss, who placed 14th at the 1924 Indianapolis 500 in a "Fronty" Ford, Stirling Moss was a pioneer in the British Formula One racing scene and placed second in the Drivers' Championship four times in a row from 1955 to 1958.

Moss, who raced from 1948 to 1962, won 194 of the 497 races he entered, including 16 Formula One Grands Prix. He once told an interviewer that he had participated in 525 races overall, as many as 62 in a single year, in 84 different cars. Like many drivers of the era, he competed in several formulae - sometimes at the same time.

Moss' first Formula One win was in 1955 at his home race, the British Grand Prix at Aintree, driving the superb Mercedes-Benz W196 Monoposto for a convincing German 1-2-3-4 win, with Karl Kling and Piero Taruffi as further pilots in the international driver line-up. It was the only race where he finished in front of Fangio, his teammate, friend, mentor and archrival at Mercedes. It is sometimes debated whether Fangio, one of the all-time great gentlemen of sport, yielded the lead at the last corner to let Moss win in front of his home crowd. Moss himself asked Fangio repeatedly, "Did you let me win?" and Fangio always replied, "No. You were just better than me that day."

File:Moss21.jpg

Stirling Moss & Denis Jenkinson

One of his most famous drives was in the 1955 Mille Miglia, the Italian 1597 km open-road endurance race, which he won in record time, finishing 10 hours and 8 minutes ahead of second-place Juan Manuel Fangio. His co-driver in the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR #722 (indicating the time of the start) was journalist Denis Jenkinson. Like other co-drivers, he supported Moss with notes about details of the long road trip, then an innovative technique among rallying co-drivers. This assistance helped Moss compete against drivers with a large amount of local knowledge of the route. Jenkinson later wrote extensively about the experience.

Moss believed the manner in which the battle was fought was as important as the outcome. This sporting attitude cost him the 1958 World Championship. When rival Mike Hawthorn was threatened with a penalty in a Portugal race, Moss defended Hawthorn's actions. Hawthorn went on to beat Moss by one point, even though he had only won one race that year to Moss's four, making Hawthorn Britain's first World Champion.

For the 1961 F1 season, which was run under 1.5-liter rules, Enzo Ferrari rolled out his state-of-the-art Ferrari 156, also known as "Sharknose." Moss was stuck with an underpowered Coventry-Climax, but managed to win the 1961 Monaco Grand Prix by a mere 3.6 seconds, and later also the partially wet 1961 German Grand Prix.

In 1962, Moss was badly injured in a crash at Goodwood while driving a Lotus. He recovered, made a premature attempt at a comeback, but found he was not fit enough and retired from GP racing. He has continued to race in historic cars, retaining his smooth driving style.

During his career, Moss drove a private Jaguar, and raced for Maserati, Vanwall, Lotus and Cooper as well as the mighty Mercedes-Benz. He preferred to race British cars (which were often uncompetitive and considered the reason he never won the drivers' championship). At Vanwall, he (and especially Jack Brabham at Cooper) was instrumental in breaking the German/Italian stranglehold on F1 racing, kick-starting the British domination of single-seater racing design and engineering that continues to this day.

Legacy

For many years during and after his career, the rhetorical phrase "Who do you think you are? Stirling Moss?" was supposedly the standard question all British policemen asked speeding motorists. Moss relates he himself was once stopped for speeding and asked just that; he reports the traffic officer had some difficulty believing him.

Moss' younger sister, Pat Moss, also engaged in Rally racing and married rally racer Erik Carlsson.

In 1990, Moss was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame.

In June 2005, while appearing at the Goodwood Revival, Moss signed the bonnet of his 1955 Mille Miglia-winning Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR which is due to enter the Mercedes-Benz museum in Stuttgart.

Complete Formula One results

(Note: grands prix in bold denote points scoring races.)

Yr	Team	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	Team
1950	Alfa	GBR	MON	IND	SWI	BEL	FRA	ITA			Alfa
1951	Ferr	SWI	IND	BEL	FRA	GBR	DEU	ITA	SPA		Ferr
1952	Ferr	SWI	IND	BEL	FRA	GBR	DEU	DUT	ITA		Ferr
1954	Ferr	ARG	IND	BEL	FRA	GBR	DEU	SWI	ITA	SPA	Ferr
1955	Ferr	ARG	MON	IND	BEL	DUT	GBR	ITA			Merc
1956	Mase	ARG	MON	IND	BEL	FRA	GBR	DEU	ITA		Vanw

See also

• Mille Miglia
• International Motorsports Hall of Fame
• Juan Manuel Fangio

External links

• Sir Stirling Moss - The Authorised Web Site
• Grand Prix History - Hall of Fame, Stirling Moss
• Sir Stirling Moss - President of The Brooklands Society
• - father of Stirling Moss racing in the thirties