Approaching 80, Moss is still stirling

The greatest driver never to win the Formula One title is flabbergasted by claims of race-fixing

The idea that a Formula One driver might deliberately crash into a wall to help his team mate win a race is enough to render Stirling Moss momentarily speechless.

The man who could have been Britain’s first world champion 51 years ago but for his sense of fair play and sportsmanship can scarcely believe the latest controversy casting a cloud over his beloved sport.

“I just can’t understand it; that a driver would go and do that...I mean, to do a thing like that is beyond imagination to me,” the greatest driver never to win the title told Reuters in an interview at his London home.

Former champions Renault have been summoned to a hearing in Paris on Sept. 21 to face charges that they effectively fixed the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix by ordering Brazilian Nelson Piquet to stage a crash that helped Fernando Alonso to win.

Moss, gearing up for his 80th birthday on Sept. 17 with the publication of a book entitled ‘Stirling Moss: All My Races’, said he was flabbergasted by the allegations.

“I just cannot believe a man would do that. It really boggles the imagination. For anyone to ask him to do it and then for him to follow through takes some believing, doesn’t it?

“I just feel it is so foreign to the sport that we used to know. But motor racing now is not a sport, it’s a fantastic business.”

ONE POINT

Moss lost the 1958 title by a single point to compatriot Mike Hawthorn after asking stewards to reinstate his disqualified rival at the Portuguese Grand Prix.

“I felt that it was quite wrong and I went and gave evidence on Mike’s behalf and said no way should he be disqualified,” said Moss, who ended the year with four wins to Hawthorn’s one.

“They obviously gave him his points back and that took the title from me. But really, the thing that mattered to me in those days was to race — today, not last week or next week.

Today I can win and I could die.

“Therefore things take on a totally different complexion. I wouldn’t think of holding back and only being fourth to get the world title. It’s appalling. I’m a racer,” he added.

“But now...last year for instance old Lewis (Hamilton) was told: ‘Look you must not try and win this race, just pace yourself’. Well I couldn’t do that. That’s just driving, that’s not racing.” Moss was never to come as close again, finishing overall runner-up on three other occasions and third three times, but he has absolutely no regrets.

“I am in the exclusive position of people saying he should have won it and he never did,” he said. “But the most important thing to me really is the respect of the other drivers.” His walls bear witness to that. A print, signed by Ayrton Senna in the year before the great Brazilian’s death at Imola in 1994, is dedicated: ‘To Stirling, with admiration’.

There are photographs of his late friend and rival Juan Manuel Fangio, and a larger one with an affectionate message from McLaren’s reigning champion Hamilton.

Two buckled and bent steering wheels hanging on the wall, one labelled ‘Spa 1960’ and the other ‘Goodwood 1962’, are relics and constant reminders of his two biggest crashes.

The latter crash ended his career, leaving him unconscious for a month and paralysed for six. When he came back, he was still quick but realised something had changed and called it a day.

STILL RACING

“If I swing at you, you’d normally duck. If you suddenly find you don’t duck, then you begin to worry a bit about what goes on,” he said, explaining his decision.

“I thought deeply about it. I think really in hindsight, I retired too early. I would love to have gone on and had every intention of racing until I was 50 or so.

“I was very fit, at the height of my game and it meant I had to work for a living,” he continued. “That was a bit of a shock.

I had spent my whole life being paid to do my sport and when you know nothing about anything you can become an MP (member of parliament) or an estate agent. I went into property.”

In fact, Moss is still racing — turning out with all the energy of a man decades younger to compete in his 1500cc Osca at historic events — but the glory years are the 1950s and 60s.

The 1961 Monaco Grand Prix rates as his greatest in Formula One, the 1955 Mille Miglia his best in sportscars.

“It was 10 hours, four minutes seven seconds I think,” he said of the latter race on regular roads. “On the last stage, which was 83 miles from Cremona to Brescia, I averaged 165,1 miles an hour from a standing start.” In his heyday, Moss entered up to 54 races a year — compared to the 17 Formula One drivers will do this year — as well as testing. He said it was a perfect existence.

“All I had to do was arrive, practise the car, race the car and then I could go. Go and chase girls or whatever I wanted to do...it was just a fabulous life.” Moss has little hesitation in naming Fangio the greatest driver of his day, just as he considers Senna the modern equivalent. Asked about his own place, he hesitates.

“Where do I put myself? I don’t know really,” he said. “I’ve never deeply thought about it. I don’t want to. In a sportscar, I think I was the best. Definitely.

“There was nobody I really felt I couldn’t beat. In Formula One, I think I was running pretty close to Fangio but I couldn’t beat him.”

Reuters Q&A with Stirling Moss:

Q. What was your greatest race?

Moss — “If one’s talking Formula One, I think Monaco in ‘61. If one’s talking overall, I would say certainly the Mille Miglia in ‘55. Completely different races. The thing you’ve got to remember is that I was doing 50 or 54 races a year — now of course they do about 16 or 18 — because I raced every type of formula — One, Two, Three, sportscars, touring cars, record attempts. Anything to do with a car I’d have a go at.”

Q. Was it more fun in those days?

Moss — “The life of a racing driver then, my quality of life, was far better than theirs today. All I had to do was arrive, practise the car, race the car and then I could go. Go and chase girls or whatever I wanted to do. Finance wasn’t in it. It was just a fabulous life.”

Q. You’ve said in the past that you consider Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso to be racers like you. Who else?

Moss — “I think Sebastian Vettel has joined them. It’s difficult if you are not racing against them, if you are not in the car. But from what I can take in from the outside he certainly appears to be a racer.”

Q. How do you rate Jenson Button’s title chances?

Moss — “I just hope to goodness because I think he would be a very worthy world champion, he’s a nice person and would handle himself well. I would like to see him do it but one’s getting a little bit concerned unless he starts getting his foot in there a bit harder.”

Q. Is Button’s problem in the mind?

Moss — “Yes, in the mind certainly. The car he’s got, you only have to look at his team mate. To see how good a man is, you look at his number two. Number two is beating number one now quite a lot and that isn’t right.”

Q. Do you think he will hang on?

Moss — “I don’t know. Watch this space”

Q. What about Michael Schumacher’s attempted comeback?

Moss — “I think Michael would (love to come back) but he’s a highly intelligent man and it would be a mistake. I don’t think that he would return as highly placed as when he went out. Not because he’s no good, but because time has moved on and the other guys are that good they will have learned from him and would obviously start with a small advantage over him.”

Q. Would you have liked to race for Ferrari?

Moss — “The year before I retired I went to see (Enzo) Ferrari. We had just made up because he had really been pretty impolite to me and he had agreed that he would supply me with three cars — a Formula One car painted in Rob Walker blue, a GTO Ferrari and a sportscar painted in British Racing Partnership colours. And I was going to drive Ferraris that year (1962). If only the Ferrari had arrived early enough, I wouldn’t have been driving the Lotus in which I had the crash (at Goodwood that ended his career). So it’s ironic and pretty annoying.”

Q. Your late sister Pat was a very competitive rally driver.

Is Formula One lacking a woman driver?

Moss — “Frankly, I can see no reason why there shouldn’t be a (female) Formula One driver. Danica Patrick in America is doing exceptionally well in IRL, she’s up in the first 10 and I can't see any physical reason. Grand Prix driving used to be very tiring because it was a three hour minimum, not now. But it hasn’t happened and one wonders why. I do think that women can be exceptionally good drivers and I can only presume there is a reason why they haven’t got into Formula One.”