Sir Stirling Moss has passed away aged 90 after a long illness as his wife Lady Moss reveals the British racing legend ‘died as he lived, looking wonderful’
Sir Stirling Moss has died at the age of 90.
The great motor-racing driver and one of the most lionised figures in the history of British sport, ‘closed his eyes’ in the early hours of Easter morning.
Lady Moss was at his bedside as he died, having nursed him through a long illness, at their Mayfair house. She told the Daily Mail: ‘He died as he lived, looking wonderful.
‘He simply tired in the end and he just closed his beautiful eyes and that was that.’
Moss’s passing was the result of a chest infection he caught in Singapore just before Christmas 2016 – there is no indication it was due to coronavirus.
Moss’s fame was secured in the years after the Second World War by his style and skill that earned him acclaim as the greatest all-round racer ever.
His versatility won him 212 of his 529 races in every conceivable kind of car.
He famously never won the Formula One world title but that was owing to his preference for British machinery and acts of conspicuous sportsmanship that denied him the chance.
He would rather win a race that play the percentages for the sake of the title. Between 1955 and 1961, he was championship runner-up on four occasions and third three times.
Among Moss’s greatest victories were the 1961 Monaco Grand Prix, in which he triumphed in his Lotus against the faster Ferraris, and the 1955 Mille Miglia – where he set a new course record in the famous 1,000-mile race around Italy.
Moss’s career at the top level of motorsport racing came to an end in 1962.
He was effectively forced to retire following a crash at Goodwood that left him in a coma for a month and partially paralysed for six months.
Stylish, debonair, brave, he kept two books of cuttings in his Mayfair house – one of motor racing, the other of ‘crumpet.
