Widely held to be the greatest driver never to have won the title, and a magnificent ambassador for the sport since his retirement. Second in the championship in four consecutive years, to Juan-Manuel Fangio 1955-7, and Mika Hawthorn in 1958, the last of which was the cruellest as Hawthorn scored one win and 42 points to Moss’s four wins and 41 points. Moss gave evidence to the stewards at that year’s Portuguese Grand Prix that prevented Hawthorn from being disqualified and Moss from being champion.

Moss’s career was partly eclipsed by Fangio’s, but his patriotic fondness for British machinery also meant he was often driving inferior cars. Nonetheless he drove a Rob Walker-entered Lotus to a stunning win at Monaco in 1961 against the vastly more powerful Ferraris. But Moss retired from Formula One the following year after sustaining serious injuries in a crash at Goodwood.

Books on Stirling Moss

• Stirling Moss: The Authorised Biography (Robert Edwards, 2005)
• “My cars, my career” (Stirling Moss with Doug Nye, 1987)