Stirling Moss

Stirling Moss aquired the label 'Best Driver Never to Win the World Championship' after retiring in 1962 as a result of his accident at the Easter Goodwood meeting that year.

His world championship record was second place on four occasions and third three times. He was perhaps unlucky to be at his peak during the years when Fangio was also at his. Like everyone else in the 1950's he was overshadowed by the 5-times world champion, although to a much lesser extent than most. Moss himself agrees that he was at least close enough to learn a lot from the master!

Something that does not often get mentioned is that the shadow of Fangio left the scene when heBuy Posters at AllPosters.com retired after two races of the 1958 season, leaving Moss as probably the obvious heir to the championship. Unfortunately, his one major flaw now became more obvious. Intensely patriotic, he insisted on striving to win using British cars when he may have been better off looking to Ferrari, who were to win the championship in 1958 and 1961. Although two of his best Grand Prix wins were to come in the Monaco and German Grands Prix of 1961, his Rob Walker Lotus was at a tremendous disadvantage to the more powerfull works Ferraris that eventually took 5 wins from the 8 races and finished 1st and 2nd in the Championship with Moss 3rd.

In 1959 and 1960 Jack Brabham in the rear engined Cooper won the Championship with Moss third on both occasions. He had remained with private entrant Rob Walker using customer Cooper and Lotus cars but the reliability of the works Coopers seemed to work against him on each occasion. In 1959 Brabham, Tony Brooks and Moss each won two Grands Prix, but unfortunately Moss retired from 5 events and had only one more scoring position finishing second with fastest lap at the British Grand Prix. Brooks scored a second and third with 3 retirements and Brabham had only 2 retirements and scored in 4 more events giving him 31 points to 27 of Brooks and 25.5 for Moss.

1960 was definately Brabham's year when he managed a record of 5 successive wins and a 4th place to end the season with 43 points. His team mate Bruce McLaren proved the worth of the works Coopers by scoring an impressive 34 points from a win and 6 top 4 finishes with only one retirement. Although Moss had two wins, he could only manage a total of 19 points in this, his final season.

Although he produced an impressive run of second and third places in the World Championship, it is very tempting to speculate what those last four seasons might have produced if Moss had learned one more lesson from Fangio. Namely, Fangio was ruthless in his persuit of the car most likely to give him a championship. Had Moss chosen Ferrari or Cooper instead of sticking with Rob Walker, who knows what he may have achieved.