British motor racing ace who, although he never won the world championship, inspired devotion in followers of the sport
He was content to be known, he often said, as the man who never won the world championship: a way of distinguishing him from those of lesser gifts but better luck who had actually succeeded in winning motor racing’s principal honour. But it was the manner in which Stirling Moss, who has died aged 90, effectively handed the trophy to one of his greatest rivals that established his name as a byword for sporting chivalry, as well as for speed and courage.
It was after the Portuguese
Grand Prix on the street circuit at Oporto, the eighth round of the 1958 series, that Moss voluntarily appeared before the stewards to plead the case of Mike Hawthorn, threatened with disqualification from second place for apparently pushing his stalled
Ferrari against the direction of the track after spinning on his final lap. Moss, who had won the race in his Vanwall, testified that his compatriot had, in fact, pushed the car on the pavement, and had thus not been on the circuit itself. Hawthorn was reinstated, along with his six championship points. Three months later, when the season ended in Casablanca, he won the title by the margin of a single point from Moss, who was never heard to express regret over his gesture.