Few would argue that Stirling Moss, who won 16 Grands Prix in a Formula One career lasting a decade, was the best driver never to win the Formula One World Drivers’ Championship. In fact, he finished second four years running, in 1955, 1956, 1957 and 1958 and third three years running, in 1959, 1960 and 1961. The 1961 Formula One season proved to be his last – he was effectively forced into premature retirement after a crash in the Glover Trophy at Goodwood in 1962 – but Moss did enough to be voted BBC Sports Personality of the Year. In so doing, he finished ahead of boxer Billy Walker, who won the British Amateur Boxing Association (ABA) Heavyweight Championship Final at Wembley in April, and tennis player Angela Mortimer, who won the ladies’ single title at the Wimbledon Championships in July.
The 1961 Formula One season was overshadowed by the death of German driver Wolfgang Von Trips, 33, who was fatally thrown from his car on the second lap of the penultimate race of the season, the Italian Grand Prix at the Monza Autodrome near Milan. The accident also killed 15 spectators, making it one of the most devastating in the history of Formula One. Von Trips posthumously finished runner-up in the World Drivers’ Championship.
In happier times, 1961 was also memorable for two outstanding driving performances from Moss, which allowed him to win two of the eight championship races in his final Formula One season. The first came at the opening race of the season, the Monaco Grand Prix, when, from pole position, Moss took advantage of the superior handling of his Lotus to defeat three far superior, but less nimble, Ferraris on the narrow, twisting track at the Circuit de Monaco in Monte Carlo. It was a similar story in the sixth race of the season, the German Grand Prix at the Nürburgring, in which Ferrari entered four cars; Moss took the lead during the first lap and never surrendered it.
Moss retired from public life in early 2018 because of ongoing health problems and died in April 2020 following a long illness. Sir Jackie Stewart said of him, “…he set a standard that I think has been unmatched since he retired.”