Motor racing-Moss hailed as true racer at memorial service

Elliot Moss sits in a vintage sports car formerly piloted by Sir Stirling Moss at a service of Thanksgiving for Sir Stirling Moss’s life and work at Westminster Abbey, London, Britain, May 8, 2024. Paul Grover/Pool via REUTERS

By Alan Baldwin

LONDON (Reuters) – Stirling Moss was hailed as a true racer and all-time Formula One great at a memorial service in London’s Westminster Abbey on Wednesday for a man who remains a byword for speed and sportsmanship.

Triple Formula One world champion Jackie Stewart led the tributes for a driver, widely regarded as the greatest never to win the title, who died aged 90 in April 2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic made such a public gathering, with some 2,000 guests in attendance on Wednesday, impossible at the time.

“There will never be another Stirling Moss. He drove well, he presented himself well, he dressed well and he was just an amazing character,” said Stewart, 84.

“I don’t think in the history of the sport there has been somebody so well loved and who has continued to be so well loved.”

The son of Argentina’s late five times world champion Juan Manuel Fangio, Moss’s friend, rival and team mate, attended the service along with champions Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill.

Seven times world champion Lewis Hamilton was represented by his father Anthony while title-winning team boss Ross Brawn and Red Bull’s Christian Horner also attended.

The Mercedes car with which Moss won the 1955 Mille Miglia was on display outside the abbey.

Stewart showed off the autograph he secured from Moss as a boy in the Scottish borders and recalled how in later life he was pulled over for speeding by a London police officer.

“I stopped, wound down the window, and he said ‘who do you think you are, Stirling Moss?’ And I had just won the world championship,” said Stewart.

Moss’s son Elliot read a letter from his father, whose professional racing career ended in 1962 after a near-fatal accident at Goodwood left him unconscious for a month and paralysed for six months.

“Be reminded that everything worth achieving comes at a cost,” he said.

“If you are lucky, you might never get the bill. But don’t bank on it. Before you start, be sure you are willing to pay the price. I was, and I did, and I have no regrets.”

(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Toby Davis)