Stirling Moss

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Stirling Moss
Formula One Career
Nationality	Image:Flag of the United Kingdom.svg British
Active years	1950 - 1962
Team(s)	Mercedes-Benz, Maserati, Vanwall, Rob Walker Cooper & Lotus
Grands Prix	66
Championships	0
Wins	16
Podium finishes	24
Pole positions	16
Fastest laps	19
First Grand Prix	1950 British Grand Prix
First win	1955 British Grand Prix
Last win	1961 German Grand Prix
Last Grand Prix	1961 Italian Grand Prix

Sir Stirling Moss OBE (born September 17, 1929 in London) is a retired English racing driver. His success in a variety of categories placed him among the world's elite - he is often called "the greatest driver never to win the World Championship".<ref name=grandprixcom>"Sir Stirling Moss", grandprix.com. Retrieved on 2006-10-21.</ref>

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.

1 Racing Career
2 Legacy
3 Family
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit] Racing Career

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' 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 Juan Manuel 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."

One of his most famous drives was in the 1955 Mille Miglia, the Italian 1597 km open-road endurance race, which he won in the record time of 10 hours and 8 minutes, finishing almost half an hour ahead of teammate Fangio in second place. His navigator in the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR #722 (indicating the time of the start) was journalist Denis Jenkinson. As navigator, he supported Moss with notes about details of the long road trip, then an innovative technique taken from rallying. 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 revealed in a 2006 interview that his performance in that race also benefitted from the use of amphetamines, the use of which was legal then. <ref>I was high on drugs when I won the Mille Miglia, says Stirling Moss, Scotsman.com, 28 March 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-27</ref>

In 1957 Moss won on the longest circuit to ever hold a Grand Prix, the daunting 25 kilometer Pescara Circuit, again demonstrating his skills at high speed, long distance driving. He beat friend, mentor and archrival Fangio, who started on pole, by a little over 3 minutes over the course of a gruelling 3 hour race.

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.

Moss was as gifted at the wheel of a sports car as he was in a Grand Prix car. For three consecutive years (1958-1960) he was winning driver at the grueling 1000km race at Germany's Nürburgring, the first two years in an Aston Martin (where he won almost single-handedly) and the third in the memorable "birdcage" Maserati. Image:MossLotusClimax19610806.jpg Image:Mercedes SLR Stirling Moss 1977.jpg 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-powered Lotus, 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. The accident put him in a coma and partially paralyzed the left side of his body. ^[1] 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.

During his career, Moss drove a private Jaguar, and raced for Maserati, Vanwall, Cooper, and Lotus, as well as Mercedes-Benz. He preferred to race British cars stating "Better to lose honorably in a British car than win in a foreign one" ^[2]. The British cars were often uncompetitive and this was considered the reason he never won the drivers' championship. At Vanwall, he was instrumental in breaking the German/Italian stranglehold on F1 racing (as was Jack Brabham at Cooper).

[edit] 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. People in Britain continue to use 'Stirling Moss' as a nickname for family and friends who are known to be faster than usual behind the wheel.

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.

In recent years, Moss has been an outspoken opponent of Michael Schumacher.

[edit] Family

Stirling Moss is the son of Alfred E. Moss, who placed 14th at the 1924 Indianapolis 500 in a "Fronty" Ford.
Moss' younger sister, Pat Moss, also engaged in Rally racing and married rally racer Erik Carlsson.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Sir Stirling Moss - The Authorised Web Site
Grand Prix History - Hall of Fame, Stirling Moss
Alfred Moss - his father racing at Brooklands, Sir Stirling Moss is now the president of the Brooklands Society.

Preceded by: David Broome	BBC Sports Personality of the Year 1961	Succeeded by: Anita Lonsborough
Preceded by: Peter Collins	BRDC International Trophy winner 1956	Succeeded by: Jean Behra
Preceded by: Innes Ireland	BRDC International Trophy winner 1961	Succeeded by: Graham Hill