Stirling Moss passes away: Motorsport mourns death of 'Greatest driver to never win a F1 World Championship'

Stirling Moss, the British racing driver who ranked as one of the all-time Formula One greats despite never winning the world championship, died on Sunday at the age of 90 after a long illness. “He died as he lived, looking wonderful,” his wife Susie told the Daily Mail newspaper. “He simply tired in the end and he just closed his beautiful eyes and that was that.” News of his passing was mourned across the world of motorsport, with Formula One hailing a ‘legend’ and ‘one of the true greats’.

A team mate at Mercedes to Argentine five-times world champion Juan Manuel Fangio, the Briton survived one of the deadliest eras of motorsport with 16 grand prix wins in the 1950s and early 1960s. Four times a championship runner-up, and also third overall on three occasions, no other driver has won as many races without taking the title. Moss was also the first Briton to win his home grand prix, beating Fangio at Liverpool’s Aintree circuit for Mercedes in 1955, with his name becoming a byword for speed for a generation of fans.

“A prodigious competitor, supremely talented racer, and consummate gentleman, he leaves an indelible mark of greatness on the history of international motorsport,” said McLaren offering their condolences. Former racer and television commentator Martin Brundle hailed “a mighty racer and gentleman”.

Moss ended his professional career after an accident at Goodwood in 1962 left him unconscious for a month and paralysed for six months. Knighted Sir Stirling Craufurd Moss in 2000 for services to motor racing, the London-born dentist’s son retired from all forms of motor racing only in 2011 when he was 81.

Moss was taken ill in Singapore in late 2016 and spent 134 days in hospital battling a chest infection. He also survived a three-storey plunge down a lift shaft at his London home in March 2010, breaking both ankles and four bones in his feet. (with inputs from Reuters)