Sir Stirling Moss Loses Long Battle with Singapore Illness

Sir Stirling Craufurd Moss, a great in the sport of motor racing has passed away after an extended illness it was announced on Sunday by his wife, Susie. Moss, who was born in 1929, has an esteemed career in motor racing winning 212 Formula One races.

Moss career came to an end after he crashed in 1962 at southern England’s Goodwood track which resulted in him going into a coma and suffering from partial paralysis for six months. He is considered one of the greats in the sport who failed to win a World Championship and was inducted into the International Motorsports Hall of Fame as a result of his Formula One career that lasted from 1955 and 1961. Moss ended his career in the sport with four runner-up championship finishes and finished third in three other years.

Moss’s wife Suzie commented to the British Press Association stating; “It was one lap too many. He just closed his eyes.” The result from the news of his passing saw hundreds of tributes being made from the sport of Motor racing.

Moss Drove for Mecedese

It was reported that Moss, who drove for Mercedes while in the sport, passed away as a result of a chest infection he picked up with vacations in December in Singapore in 2016. That infection resulted in Moss retiring from the public life, and while the cause of his death hit close to home with the current coronavirus pandemic, it was not the cause of his death.

During a time when it was the norm for race car drivers to focus in multiple forms of the sport Moss droves in 529 races over the span of his driving career and racked up 212 victories. The most notable of those victories include the winning of the 1955 Mille Miglia, a 1,000 mile long race on the roads of Italy that saw Moss setting a track record.

During his stint in Formula One, Moss won sixteen races including the British Grand Prix in 1955, the first time a British driver recorded a win at the Liverpool track. While Moss is considered one of the sports greats, he happened to drive while famed Argentina driver Juan Manuel Fangio was racing and at a time when the Argentine driver won five F1 championship titles, second now only to Michael Schumacher.

Moss was considered a top sportsman, and it cost him the title in 1958 after defending the actions of fellow British driver Mike Hawthorn after an incident at the Portuguese Grand Prix. That resulted in preventing Hawthorn from being hit with six point penalty, and his actions were a direct result in Hawthorn winning the 1958 title with a one point margin. Commenting later about the incident, Moss stated: “I had no hesitation in doing it. I can’t see how this is open to debate. The fact that he was my only rival in the championship didn’t come into my thinking. Absolutely not.”