Stirling Moss, widely-regarded as the greatest motor racing driver never to win the world title, has died aged 90 following a long illness.
“It was one lap too many,” his wife Susie Moss told Britain’s Press Association on Sunday.
“He just closed his eyes.”
Tributes flooded in from the world of motorsport and beyond to the gifted and revered driver who never won the Formula One title, finishing runner-up four times and third three times.
“Today we say goodbye to Sir Stirling Moss, the racing legend,” reigning world champion Lewis Hamilton wrote on Instagram.
“Two people from massively different times and backgrounds but we clicked and ultimately found that the love for racing we both shared made us comrades,” added the six-time world champion.
Meanwhile, three-time world champion Jackie Stewart, who came into Grand Prix racing shortly after Moss’s injury-enforced retirement in the early 1960s, told the BBC: “I think he’s probably the best example of a racing driver there’s ever been.
“He walked like a racing driver, he talked like a racing driver, he behaved like a racing driver should behave.”
Former England striker Gary Lineker posted on Instagram: “Sir Stirling Moss has reached life’s checkered flag, and what a race he drove. Wonderful driver and a lovely man. RIP.”
British media reported Moss had succumbed to a chest infection he caught in Singapore in December 2016 that saw him retire from public life two years later.
There is no suggestion his death was linked to the coronavirus.
In an era when it was common for drivers to race in different disciplines, Moss won 212 of the 529 races he entered over a 14-year career that started in 1948.
His victories included the 1955 Mille Miglia, where he set a course record in the 1,000 mile event, which took place on public roads in Italy. (AFP)
