Q & A with Stirling Moss

He took to the interview stage at AUTOSPORT International to talk about his extraordinary career, as well as answer questions from the huge crowd of fans that gathered to hear him speak.

Q. The problem when we're talking to someone like you is, what to leave out of your incredible career. You're here to promote the wonderful book that describes every race that you did - all 585. Do you remember them all?

Stirling Moss: No, I remember the ones where bad things happened - I remember wheels coming off, brake failures and things like that. But I can't remember all of them, no.

Q. You probably have people coming up to you saying things like 'I saw you at Oulton Park in 1959 and you went around the outside of someone on lap 12', and you don't remember it.

SM: Well, those things do happen, and it's very flattering that they do remember it actually. It's amazing how many enthusiasts there are. The thing that really staggers me is that looking at all the people here today, not many of these people were even born when I retired. It's a long time ago, and it's very flattering that they should be interested in the sport and that that interest should include myself.

Q. AUTOSPORT is celebrating 60 years this year, and you started racing just before AUTOSPORT began. Have you always read the magazine and used it as a reference to what's going on?

SM: Yes I have. I knew [founding editor] Gregor Grant quite well, and in fact I did a rally with him. I said to people, 'where is he?', because we'd had a stop and I couldn't find him. They said, 'well, he's in the cinema' so I went into the cinema and poor Gregor was laying across all these seats because he was so tired! He was a great guy, and I have followed AUTOSPORT ever since then.

Q. You started in 1948 when you were 19. That was quite unique then, as drivers tended to start later, but you were just a teenager.

SM: Yes, well you see, karts didn't exist then. Karts weren't around, which was a great shame. All you could start in really were 500ccs or maybe a sportscar. I'd been very interested in cars - my father had raced, mostly at Brooklands and Indianapolis, my mother had been an ambulance driver in the First World War and then did rallies and trials with my father, so I was brought up around fast cars and it seemed like a nice idea to do. It was nothing like it is today.

Q. You've said that you raced for fun, that it was a hobby. Were there any aspirations to go to Le Mans or into grand prix racing when you started out?

SM: No. I just wanted to race. Obviously as you go ahead and you're racing, you begin to think, 'well I'd like to try this, or I'd like to try that', and I enjoyed every race. The only one I didn't really enjoy was Le Mans, because in those days it was not the same as it is today, where they go flat-out from the start. And we had orders - you had to drop off 600 revs, you can't do this, you can't do that, and that I found rather boring, actually.

Q. In modern racing, everyone is tied to a specific discipline - you can't just jump in and race different things like you used to.

SM: In those days there were always different things coming up each year - you had Formula 3, Formula 2, Formula 1, and one always wanted to try to do the more important races or more interesting races - races at places like the Nurburgring, which is a wonderful circuit. It was really more exciting than nearly anywhere else in the world. And Monaco - it was in the Principality, and you could see that the people were very close ... it was completely different, I must say.

I remember getting my first competition licence, this was in 1948 I guess, and it cost me five shillings. I just had to show my road licence. Five bob, and I had a licence that allowed me, without doing any testing at all, to go to Indianapolis, for instance, for Formula 1. Now you at least have to do small events before you can do international events, but back then that wasn't the case.

Q. Shortly after you retired, the money thing started. Do you think that was good or bad, this very restrictive corporate sponsorship that infiltrated racing in the late 1960s?

SM: I think... I can see why it's necessary, but I think that because the tremendous amount of money put in by sponsors and so on, it is a difficult thing for a driver. If I arrived at a race track, as long as I was there for practice and the race, then I was free afterwards to go and chase crumpet or anything else. Now you have to go and speak to Vodafone and all these other sponsors. So it wouldn't have suited my way of life, no.

Q. I bet that when we interview Jenson he doesn't tell us that he chases crumpet after the race...

SM: No, but he's not queer!

Q. You obviously keep up with modern racing. You don't think that the current guys have as much fun as you used to. Can you explain why?

SM: The quality of life. Lewis or Jenson this year - what they have to do would have interfered with my lifestyle, to tell you the truth. It's unfortunate. I can understand why it is, because if you've got a sponsor spending goodness-knows-how-much, you've got to go along with them. I mean, my sponsors were the people who paid me to go and drive something. I led the Rootes Group team in rallies and so on in 1950 or whenever it was, and I got 50 quid for that. I didn't have to do anything other than when they announced a new car, be there for that. So it was quite a different life.

Q. When you guys finished a race, you'd go into the bar in the paddock...

SM: Not the bar because I didn't actually drink until I was 32. I may have acted that way. But I didn't have a drink until I was 32 years old.

Q. So it's an urban myth that you used to party hard?

SM: I partied hard but just without drinking. If you don't drink then you can enjoy the party more, because instead of passing out you just enjoy it.

Q. Top drivers would just mingle with fans, whether it was at the bar, or trackside...

SM: I remember I had my 21st birthday party at a place near Brands Hatch, and all the drivers would come along and have a drink of whatever they were drinking, and dance and whatever. Believe me, our quality of life was really as good as any at that time.

Q. We need to talk about Mille Miglia in 1955. The numbers are still extraordinary - 1000 miles in about 10 hours on public roads, with people right there...

SM: What amazes me actually - I was looking at the times the other day - is that on the last section, Cremona to Brescia, 173 kilometres, standing start, I averaged 165.5 miles an hour. Which is really quite fast on an open road. I almost can't believe it myself. It shows what an incredible car the 300 SLR was.

Q. You averaged 165 miles an hour for 173 kilometres. You must have been mad...

SM: The thing was, that's what one did. To me it is quite staggering. The thing was that the SLR, which was certainly the finest sportscar of its day... it was absolutely incredible. It was only a three-litre, it was quite a large car, and yet we could go up to 180 miles an hour, which is quick even by today's standards.

Q. On public roads you couldn't possible do that, even in a top supercar.

SM: And then we had three mountain passes as well.

Q. Have you been back to Italy to retrace that journey?

SM: Not actually to retrace. I've been back to Italy and seen parts that I've done. It just staggers me.

Q. I suppose a lot of it is spoiled now, because of dual carriageways and blocks of flat and things like that?

SM: Oh no, I think much of the roads do exist still, but in those days what you've got to realise was that there was no such thing as dual carriageway. We didn't go on any dual carriageways, and the roads were pretty rough, I must say. It's staggering when you think about it, the first car went at nine o'clock at night, and then at half-minute intervals all the way through to midnight, and then at midnight the faster cars were sent off. I went at 7:22 in the morning, and I was not the last car. So that gives you an idea ... you're talking about 800-odd entries. That is amazing because, are there 800 people who can drive that well? And you didn't have to drive that well. If you arrived in Brescia with a car like a Healey or whatever, you'd put a number on the side and they'd take it. And that's how it was.

Q. For you, 1955 was an incredible year. You won the Mille Miglia, and were a Mercedes factory driver and won the British Grand Prix. What are your reflections from that day at Aintree?

SM: Well, at Mercedes there was only one race where I was given instructions that it would be better if Fangio won, and that was a sportscar race in Sweden. After that, our instructions were that the first car that gets 30s lead over the rest of the field - which in those days would happen - then they'd put out a sign that said REG, which meant regulate, which meant hold your position. So if Fangio had been ahead or I had been ahead, then we wouldn't race each other. So it was quite different times.

Q. You came out of the last corner on the last lap in a train, and you don't actually know whether he let you win or not.

SM: No, I don't. What I do know is that I came around the last corner, put my foot flat down in I think it was second, and waved him past. I thought, 'well, if he goes past then he has a better engine than I have', and they wouldn't do that at Mercedes, and I did finish half a car length ahead. But I still don't know whether earlier on he gave me the race. I asked him about it and he said, 'no, no, you were on form, it was your day', but with Fangio that doesn't really mean much.

Q. You had a special relationship with him. Do you think that was bought about by the fact that he was almost 20 years older than you?

SM: The age didn't matter so much. Yes, he was quite a lot older, but he was such a wonderful man. I had such respect for this man. Not only was he the greatest driver in the world, but he was a very honourable person. To follow him and be right behind him was my great pleasure.

Right through the year we were known as 'the train' - [team manager Alfred] Neubauer didn't like it much because he was frightened that I might hit him. He said, 'what happens if he goes off?', and I said, 'Fangio doesn't go off'. And that was that. And the public of course would see me sitting there all the time, and I think they felt that I was under team orders and that I could pass him if I wanted to, which wasn't the truth. I could beat him in sportscars, but not in Formula 1.

Questions from the fans

Q. I've heard that you have an amazing house, and there is a story that your toilet seat has oil going around the pan. Is that true?

SM: No, no, my toilet is heated seats. And must say, I can't believe you poor devils having to live, particularly in this cold weather, how do you put your bottom on the seat? When I am in somebody else's house I put my hand there first and then pull it out.

Actually, I am trying to find a toilet seat manufacturer who makes heated covers, because they are really, really good.

Q. Can Michael Schumacher do it in 2010?

SM: Very, very good question. I'm not sure. I think he is very brave to come back, I think it is very good for the sport, he has gone to the best team I think, but that doesn't mean he is going to win. To beat people like Vettel, and Alonso - who is a very dark horse at the moment - I think he has his work cut out, actually.

One problem with Michael from my point of view is that he has never really had a really fast number two, and usually the best way you can tell how fast a driver is, is to look at the number two and see where he is in relation to him. He's had Rubens, who is a terrific man and a very quick driver, but one doesn't look at him as being one of the very fastest and yet sometime he was quicker.

I don't personally think he will win it. It's too early to say, but I think it will go to Vettel or Alonso. I think it is good for the sport, but I don't think he was very well advised to take it.

Q. I suppose you don't approve of some of the argy-bargy that he used to be notorious for?

SM: Yes. He wouldn't do that if he was in my era. He is in no way stupid, that man; he's not going to risk his neck. But one benefit of my era was, there were one or two idiots that you had to be careful of, but in principle it was pretty clean driving. Now you see these nudges here and there, which is an unfortunately thing of safety, really.

The reason I went into racing was that it was dangerous. When you are 17, you want to do something dangerous, and that's why I did it. A safe car, for me, would not have been as exciting as having a car that I might die in. Although I didn't want to die; I must tell you that.

Q. Are there any tracks on the current calendar that you'd have liked to have driven on?

SM: In one word, no. It's difficult to compare modern circuits, which I think are fantastic for what they are. But for the type of vehicles that they build now, those types of circuits are necessary. In my day, a road was what you wanted. To race around Hyde Park, which was actually mooted at one time - the police turned it down because they said that they could not possible have controlled the people - would have been wonderful.

I like road circuits and so on, so in truth I can't think of any circuits today that would have been as exciting to race on as in my day. I think I was very lucky.

Q. If you hadn't had that accident at Goodwood, how long would you have liked to carry on racing?

SM: I was reckoning that I would go on hopefully to about 50, because Fangio got his last title at 47. I was very, very fit, and I couldn't see why I couldn't. The races were three hours, I could cope with three hours, and in fact I didn't do any training because I was racing every week. I was doing 52 a year.

So I would have hoped to have gone on until I was at least 50 and then had a think then about whether I was enjoying it. I raced because I enjoyed it, nothing else, I really loved racing. By the time I had retired I had gotten senior enough that I could say, 'well I don't want to go there because it's not a very nice circuit' or what-have-you, and I had hopes of continuing for another 20 or 30 years.

Q. You have said that you were perhaps a bit hasty in your decision to retire...

SM: I was very hasty, but the thing you have to understand is the power of the press. The press were continually asking me when I was going to race again, because I had broken my back and my legs a couple of years before, and I was only out for four weeks.

I really thought that I'd be back. I didn't realise that I'd been unconscious for a month, and when I came to, it was like it was yesterday. So I really thought that I'd be back racing very quickly, and then it became obvious that it wasn't feasible. The reason I tested myself out was because the press was saying, 'when are you going to do it?', and my lap times at Goodwood were really quite competitive, they weren't bad, and I would have continued except that it just wasn't the way it had been before.

Before, it was rather like, if I swing a punch at you, you're going to duck because you don't want to be hit. But this was like, 'he's swung a punch, I'd damn well better duck now'. I wasn't really with it. I thought that if I went out there and raced, I'd be a danger to other people and myself, so I was forced into retiring, really. I didn't want to.

If I'd waited longer, I don't know. By then Jimmy Clark had arrived, and he was the guy to beat, and he was doing extremely well, and I would have been three or four years out of the saddle. It just appeared not feasible, which I must say was a shame, because I was 32 years old and I had to work for a living and it nearly killed me. I had all those years of being paid to do what I loved, and then all of a sudden I had to do something else. It was quit a shock.

[Points at the crowd] All these people are still only here because Jenson is coming!

Q. That's not true!

SM: Talking about Jenson, I think he will be a really good world champion, because of the way he is and so on. He's a very approachable person. I congratulate him on what he did. I think he is going to have a hell of a job next year though - he has gone and put his head into the lion's mouth to go and join Lewis, who is possibly the fastest driver. Lewis or Alonso, or maybe Vettel, are possibly the fastest drivers, so it's going to be quite a season.

Q. Are you pleased that F1 is back at Silverstone?

SM: Oh yes. I mean, Silverstone is the home of racing over here. We haven't got a real road, that's as near as you are going to get, and they've made it easier to get in and out now, and it is still a terrific circuit. Poor old Donington - it was a great shame, but certainly I think Silverstone is the best place for it and I am very, very happy. I'm biased; I am a member of the BRDC and it's our home track, but I think it's good news.

Q. Have we seen the end of the Bernie and BRDC spats that have gone on for years?

SM: I don't know. Bernie is quite a character, he'll do anything to piss you off. He teases - he has a great sense of humour, he really has. You may find that difficult to believe, but he has a great sense of humour. Not that that is any good in a fight with the BRDC, but I do think that things will probably be a bit easier.

Bernie is nearly my age, and it amazes me -he is a dapper little fellow, and he's got this great big tall girlfriend now ... who knows what the future holds for him.

Q. Would you like to see a return to racing around the streets in Birmingham?

SM: Oh, you'd better believe it. I'd like to see anywhere like that. The fact that it is a road circuit makes it 10 times better anyway. All the drivers, I think I am right in saying, all like Monaco for that reason - it's very atmospheric, it's very personal, and I am sure that there are many places - Birmingham particularly, because it started the idea - but I am sure that there are many places that would like to do it.

But it won't happen, that's for sure. The modern car isn't really suited to run on a decent circuit. If it was it would be road racing and you'd be able to have that, but nowadays they have to be like a billiard table and all that stuff like they've got in the Far East.

Q. If somewhere like Monaco applied for a race now, they've never get it...

SM: No, they wouldn't. But thank God that they are that established. And I think the drivers genuinely like it. I think they do because of the atmosphere and the tradition and all those things like that. But it wouldn't be allowed now, no.

Q. What do you think of the idea of having a race around Rome?

SM: Well we used to have a grand prix in RomeThe problem is that the circuits they have to have now to satisfy the cars have to be completely different to anything that they normally have, so they have to build something. And I don't think, unless I'm mistaken, I don't think there is anywhere in Rome at the moment where they could have one. I may be wrong, but I don't think there is.