Stirling Moss came from a car racing world which started up with low cost cars with 500 cc motor bike engines, the major chassis were Cooper and Kieft. The cars were transported on open trailers, there was a Kieft on our road for a short time which got envious inspection by us children.
The name Stirling Moss was well known in his Cooper and it was not long before he advanced to other vehicles. He was successful at all those which he took part in and as happened in those days that would be just about every race at the meeting.
The first time that I saw him was a wet day in August 1961 at the Nurburgring Ring for the German GP. There had been a change in engine specifications, Ferrari just happened to have an existing engine which pretty we fitted bill so were dominant. We had high hopes as Moss had won in Monaco driving a Lotus owned by Rob Walker; the Ferraris had a chassis which was poor compared to the Lotus. There was a shower just before the start so Moss was put onto wet tyres which turned out to be a race winning decision as he stayed on the same ones to the end, although they were pretty well shot when there was more rain towards the finish. . This lead to a tense final lap, the only information was the German commentary and the tower showing the position of the cars at various places on the lap. But Moss held on to win fairly comfortable in the end.
Moss continued in his racing career until he had a serious accident at Goodwood in April 1962, he was in a coma for a month. He later said that it was the only crash he had where he did not manage to turn the car round.
We concentrate on here on F1 but where Moss really excelled was sports cars. He seemed to have an affinity with them and seemed as though he was a part of the car.
He must be the only driver to give away the WDC as it would not have been fair to win it.