Stirling Moss Racing Legends

'I'm Patrick Stewart - actor

'and lifelong motor racing fan.

'Now I'm about to embark on a journey that will bring to life the career

'of one of my all-time heroes -

'1950s racing legend, Sir Stirling Moss.'

It's...breathtaking.

A bit tighter. Bit tighter. That's the field.

'I'm getting behind the wheel of the cars he drove to glory...'

Sorry about that.

'..and re-living his most memorable victories first hand...'

It's Moss who crosses the line to win in record time.

That's beautiful.

'..all to help me understand how one man won the hearts and minds of the British public.

'It's a tale of fast cars...'

Stirling holds a ten-second lead.

'..epic battles...'

He's gone!

'..and survival against all the odds.'

-Are you going to try and persuade him to stop racing after this?

-I shall ask him.

-That shows it there.

-Oh, Lord.

Do you think you're indestructible?

Why should I have another accident?

'Now I'm going to experience the Stirling Moss story...

'from the driver's seat.'

This beats the Enterprise any day.

We're here at Silverstone and I'm driving in a celebrity race.

I want to be driving over the finishing line

on the Grand Prix circuit at Silverstone

when I take the chequered flag.

In 15th position. There are 15 of us.

Acting might be my passion, but I've always loved cars

and at the age of 72...

..I've just been awarded my racing licence.

One of the problems with motor racing is that

I actually don't like going very fast.

Number 12 there, Sir Patrick Stewart

looking as though he's sitting in an armchair. Totally relaxed.

I get to a point where I think that's just fast enough.

And that's a handicap.

For me, racing a car for a living is a farfetched fantasy,

encapsulated by a man I have always envied and respected.

When I was a kid, there was an English driver called Stirling Moss.

He was living in a world that was as remote from my world as possible.

A working-class kid growing up in a mill town in the West Riding of Yorkshire.

As an aspiring actor,

I was seduced by Stirling's world of speed and glamour.

It's difficult to communicate

to the enthusiast of today who wasn't lucky enough to be alive at the time

just how great a driver he was.

Five world records all broken by about 20%.

His name stands for being a true racer.

This is a country

that loves motor racing

and he is probably the biggest star of all.

When he passed people, which he frequently did, of course,

he would always give them a gentlemanly wave.

Stirling waving his hand.

They must have been very irritated indeed by his skill and his decency.

But I want to get to know the real Stirling Moss...

Patrick Stewart taking ninth place.

..and, under his watchful eye,

try and emulate one of his greatest-ever victories.

I wonder if that means I'll have to get better at driving fast.

In a way I could never have anticipated, these things have come together.

Two people.

Before meeting the man himself,

I need to know more about why Stirling Moss was such a successful driver...

Stirling Moss, Maserati, number 28,

took an early lead and held it.

..so I've enlisted the help of a man

who's driven in nearly as many disciplines as Moss.

Tiff Needell has raced Formula One in Monaco, sports cars at Le Mans

and rallied in the forests of England.

If anyone knows what it takes to be an all-round driver, he does.

Tiff, look at this.

Sir Stirling Moss sprinting across the track,

leaping so agilely into his car, slipping down into the seat

and off he goes with 15 or 20 other cars.

Why was there something different and special about this driver?

It almost starts with that running start we are seeing now

because it was his economy of movement.

The relaxed pose at the wheel.

The real greats, I believe,

they've got their brains ahead of their bodies

so they'd know what the car was going to do before it got there.

Stirling Moss was post-war Britain's first professional racing driver.

This is the drive of his life.

If you're a professional racing driver,

you are in there to try and win.

Therefore, you've got to keep the pressure up all the time.

He was the man teenage boys wanted to be.

And women wanted to be with.

-There's a beautiful blonde.

-Beautiful young woman.

But his career was very different to a modern driver.

It's Moss who crosses the line to win in record time.

He moved from team to team, from rallying to racing.

Very distinctive.

It was an era when top drivers drove in every discipline.

In a race day, you do Formula One, saloon cars, sports cars.

-On the same day?

-Yes.

-Extraordinary.

That's the best illustration of the quality of his technique.

That he could shift in that way.

He didn't have to be programmed for one vehicle.

Stirling reached the same top speeds as modern drivers, up to 180 mph,

but with very little grip, poor brakes and no safety precautions.

It dawned on me that perhaps the most amazing thing

is that he's still alive.

Here we are, look.

In the pits and they're refuelling and fuel is splashing everywhere.

There's barely room for the car to get through the crowd of spectators.

The skills in his day were so much more important.

Death is something which frightens me.

Thinking of it isn't going to make it less likely to happen,

therefore I don't think about it.

It was one of the reasons why there was such camaraderie among drivers.

So many of his colleagues and friends were badly injured or died.

I'm going to be coming face-to-face with him very shortly and,

having been looking at this film and hearing you talk about what was

so special about Stirling Moss, I am really looking forward to it.

He's a wonderful man. You'll have a great time. Meeting a real hero.

Thank you. I'm a little nervous.

I'm meeting Stirling for the first time at his Mayfair flat

and things haven't really changed around here since my last visit.

I have a confession to make at this point.

Decades ago, when I was in my 20s, I had discovered from a friend

who worked in Mayfair that this is where Stirling lived

and I was such a fan that I walked up here and stood,

pretty much in this spot,

looking at the house in excitement and awe.

-Sir Patrick.

-Sir Stirling, good morning.

-Do come in.

This is a huge pleasure for me and a treat.

-Let's go through to my office.

-Lead the way.

Stirling has lived here for the last 55 years

after buying the land as a bomb site

and building a three-storey house on it to his own exacting specifications.

'My bedroom is completely automated.

'There are press button controls to the wardrobe doors,

'for the curtains, for filling the bath and what have you.'

Precision is very important and so it was to me in my life

and I knew exactly what I wanted where.

So being able to build a house that one had designed was a great help to me.

The walls contain my stereo equipment, a radio, tape recorder,

record player and, of course, some of my most treasured awards.

Stirling's house is like a museum,

a shrine to an amazing life

which, unsurprisingly, he likes to be reminded of.

I had such a fantastic life as a young man, I can't tell you.

The age of 16, 17 years old, you're suddenly given a car to go out and

play with and drive it as hard as you possibly can and beat other drivers.

A fabulous life.

You were, from quite early on,

considered to be one of the English sporting playboys, am I right?

Oh, yes, absolutely. I'm certainly heterosexual, let's put it that way.

Petra Sherman of Germany won the title. 33-20-33. A nice balance.

Travelling as I was all round the world,

when you go into a place, you meet a pretty girl, off you go and...

I would say it was probably as good a life as anybody could ask for.

'Boy, that's really in my line of business!'

There are many interesting mementos and artefacts in this room

but the very first thing that caught my eye are the two steering wheels

hanging above the door which appear to have suffered some distress.

When I think of the aggro that gave me...

I mean, broken back, broken legs on one and on the other one,

forced my retirement. So they are not good news in any way.

But you don't feel in any way superstitious

that there they are hanging above the door?

No, all I can say is fingers up to them, actually.

He's lost teeth, broken his shoulder, both legs, his back,

his skull and has been in a coma for 38 days thanks to motor racing.

One of the reasons I wanted to take part was because it was dangerous.

The bravado of youth, you know. Here I am, 17, 18 years old.

To do something that was really dangerous is exciting

and exhilarating.

But it was more than really dangerous, it was potentially fatal.

-We were losing three or four drivers a year.

-Every year?

-Every year.

When it happened I would say if it had been me,

I would have been in a slightly different position

-or I wouldn't have done this or...

-It would never happen to you.

Exactly. Exactly.

If I'd ever had an accident that I felt was my own fault,

-I think I'd have stopped.

-And you never did?

-No, I didn't.

Come in the lift.

This is interesting because this is a carbon fibre lift

and it was made by Williams Formula One team.

It amazed me that Stirling was so positive about the danger he faced.

-Are we there?

-OK, come through.

'Even after the accident in 1962 that ended his career.'

-This is my crash, actually. See, that shows it there.

-Oh, Lord!

I don't know where all the blood came from, really.

The car is completely mangled. It barely looks like...

-a racing car at all now.

-When I went off, I'd been doing 140 at least.

They thought I was going to die, I think, actually.

But...I'm glad to say that's a long time ago.

Right, come out and we'll go in this little car

which was the first car I actually learnt to drive with.

-Here we are. How about that? Isn't that lovely?

-Oh, this is wonderful.

-How old were you when you got into this?

-This one? Six.

-What?

-Six years old?

-Yes, on the farm. Yeah.

Stirling had borrowed the Austin

so that we could retrace his steps

right from the very start of his career.

We were going to his childhood home

where I could learn more about how he became a racing legend.

-Is this Bray village we're coming into?

-We're coming into the village, yes.

-So the roads around here were the roads that you had your first driving experience.

-Oh, absolutely.

-Can you see left?

-All clear.

Stirling hasn't been to Long White Cloud

since he lived here as a teenager.

His father, a dentist, obviously did well for himself.

Absolutely fantastic. The change is enormous.

Really, I would not have thought I'd ever lived here.

-The Thames is just here.

-Just there.

Right.

He grew up in a beautiful spot but, surprisingly, his early years

weren't as idyllic as you might think.

I had a lot of problems with bullying.

My name was Moss and they called me a yid.

It was a pretty tough upbringing.

It's not very nice when you're 10 or 11 years old.

Did it have a positive impact, do you think, in your later years?

I think it probably did.

I'm a competitive sort of person so I always enjoyed sprinting

and that sort of stuff.

So that's how you succeeded at school, by being athletic?

Yes, I certainly think it was a help.

Stirling answered back by proving himself as an athlete

and later with the ladies, too.

I did meet a real cracker actually, called Sylvia.

My mother came back, ran up the steps, banged on the door.

I was in there, of course. She turned to Sylvia and said,

"Is this any way for a young lady to behave?"

So I pushed her behind me and said,

"If you want to speak to Sylvia, please do it through me."

It was a big drama.

In the late '40s, motor-racing was an amateur sport

which both Stirling's parents enjoyed.

They encouraged him and his sister, Pat, to drive from an early age.

But most of his early training came from a hobby that didn't involve cars.

My mother was interested in horses and, of course, over there,

originally, there were stables.

The lessons that you learned in balancing a horse...

Very much the same thing happens with a car.

When you go into a corner,

you try and keep your car balanced all the way through it.

-I won 50 or 60 awards.

-Any money? Any cash?

Yeah, and I used that money actually to buy my first racing car.

My father found my cheque book and he said, "What's this 50 quid?"

I had to own up that it was the deposit on a racing car.

He said, "No son of mine is going to be a racing driver."

And so it took a lot of massaging to get my father to agree

and then he said, "If you're going to race,

"you're going to wear a crash hat."

I said to him, "Dad, that's rather sissy."

He said, "I don't care, you're going to wear a crash hat."

Stirling's father was disappointed he didn't want

to be a dentist and doubtful he could make a living from a hobby.

But by the age of 20, he had a reputation as a fearless young driver,

although the establishment were yet to take him seriously.

The difficulty for any young racing driver is to prove themselves

up against big opposition.

Stirling Moss had to break through.

But no British manufacturer would contemplate giving the boy

a drive in the TT.

On the eve of his 21st birthday,

Stirling turned up at the biggest sports car race in Britain -

the Ulster TT...with a car he'd borrowed from a family friend.

It was straight off the assembly line, as a matter of fact.

The makers weren't too pleased about Stirling driving it.

It seems as if you were rather sticking your neck out

in making the offer.

No, no, some of us had spotted Stirling a long time.

We knew he was on the up and up.

Come the race weekend, it absolutely poured down.

For Stirling Moss, this was manna from heaven

because it was an opportunity to show what he could do

up against the established stars in great cars.

'Yes, they're off!

'And that's Stirling Moss jumping into his Jaguar, car number seven.'

I remember going round there and obviously getting pit signals,

and I could see that I was gaining a bit here and there.

I liked the wet. I think that suited my style.

It played into my hands.

I mean, to win the Tourist Trophy, it was quite overwhelming to me, really.

I had not ever won a really serious race.

The elation brings tears to your eyes.

And that evening, Jaguar asked him

if he would lead the works team in 1951.

And suddenly, you've got rival team managers saying, who is this guy?

How can he go that fast?

'Stirling Moss in another Jaguar has left at about 106 miles an hour.'

As a member of Team Jaguar,

Stirling made a name for himself in a number of competitions.

'The young, but most capable hands of Stirling Moss.

'The 21-year-old who is Britain's greatest racing hope today.'

I think that people wanted a hero after the war. Stirling,

because he was young, he gave the people some cheer

and some hope, I think.

Stirling had won the country over with his performances in Jaguar sports cars,

but he also wanted to conquer the glamorous world of high-speed Formula One.

'Italy's Ferraris are out to dominate the new Formula One field.'

Just like today, Formula One in the '50s meant thoroughbred single-seater cars,

but back then, the world championship was dominated by Italians.

You can't really think of Formula One without Ferrari.

They're sort of part national institution

and part race team.

To be a Ferrari racing driver, would be to have arrived completely.

Word of Stirling's ability had reached the Continent,

where he was invited to drive

for the famously manipulative Enzo Ferrari.

He was a man that everybody was fairly scared of,

even his team managers.

If there was a crash, he'd ask about the car first, before the driver.

He offered me a car and I went all the way down to Bari

in southern Italy with my father, being thrilled.

But at the last minute,

Ferrari opted for a famous Italian driver instead.

And I found that the car had been given to Taruffi.

Stirling didn't take kindly to the snub

and so he turned his back on the biggest name in motorsport.

I was very angry. A gentleman wouldn't do that.

And I vowed, there and then, that never would I drive for Ferrari.

He returned from Italy determined to win the Formula One

world championship in a British car.

I'm very thrilled, Ray, because at last it seems we're going

to have the chassis and road holding and an engine built for the job.

So perhaps we'll be able to compete with the Italians

on their own ground.

We've certainly got the driver, so we'll keep our fingers crossed.

Eventually, Ferrari found an Englishman happy to drive his cars.

Come 1953, fun-loving Mike Hawthorn was the man to beat.

This tall, young, hard-drinking,

womanising boy from Farnham

popped up on the scene.

There was no comparison between Stirling and Mike.

You found that people who liked Moss didn't like Hawthorn,

and vice versa.

I'd like to say how much I enjoyed today's racing.

It's certainly given me great pleasure to win the trophy.

While Stirling, in his home-grown technology, had hit a career low.

'Too bad, trouble robs Moss of victory.'

'His determination to drive British had become an insuperable handicap.'

If he was going to keep up with Hawthorn, he needed

to drive for a major team and so his father took drastic measures.

My father then went to see Maserati.

They worked out a deal

where they would supply me with the same cars they were racing,

they would keep it up-to-date if anything new came out.

They bought it without telling me and they bought it with my money!

Fed up with British cars, Stirling's father bought

an Italian Maserati, hoping they would attract

the attention of a major team.

I was surprised at how much money they had spent, obviously,

but the main thing was, that now my back was to the wall.

The Maserati 250F.

A gorgeous car even now

and it was a car that Stirling Moss just felt totally at home with.

And suddenly, he was producing these world-beating performances.

It opened the eyes of people around the world to the quality

and the skills of this young man.

The plan worked, and German giants Mercedes came knocking.

Having not competed since the war, Mercedes were back -

and they wanted a team of youth and experience.

Stirling provided the youth.

Then double world champion Fangio, the experience.

'And from now on, his nickname, The Boy, somehow no longer seemed appropriate.'

Mercedes wanted to win in every category of racing

and sent Moss and Fangio to Italy to take on the Italian giants

in their own back yard.

My next meeting with Stirling

is in Florence...

..where, with the resources of Mercedes behind him,

he set his sights on the world's toughest sports car race.

-Here we are, early morning, in Florence.

-Florence, exactly.

Why are we in Florence? And what does it mean to you and me?

We're in Florence because this is one of the great places

-we used to race through. Right through the middle of the town.

-Race through?

-And what race would this be?

-The Mille Miglia 1955.

Every Italian knew what the Mille Miglia was. They all watched it.

Amazing atmosphere, I can't tell you.

The Mille Miglia was the sports car equivalent of the Tour de France.

1,000 miles of racing on public roads.

-And the race ends up where it began?

-Exactly. At Brescia.

-In Brescia.

Just over ten hours later.

-This sounds very, very challenging.

-Yes, it was!

But why don't we go and let's find out what it's like? Let's go.

You know, you wouldn't believe it,

-but we actually raced down roads like this in the Mille.

-This...?

-Yes.

Bikes wouldn't be there, but you'd be racing down there.

-It's little more than a car's width?

-Oh, absolutely.

'And here comes Moss, well out in front with the leaders.'

And what kind of speed would you go down a street like this?

You would get up to 100 miles an hour.

About that.

To win, Stirling needed to know the roads

better than the Italians themselves.

So with navigator Denis Jenkinson,

he studied every last mile in my all-time favourite car -

the sublime Mercedes Gullwing.

Look at that.

Beautiful car.

That's our transport.

Come on, shall we have a go in it?

Yeah, yes. It's glorious.

Your seat.

Isn't it lovely?

I have never been this close to this vehicle before.

It's...breathtaking.

We're going through some very beautiful countryside.

How much time did you have to admire the view, Stirling?

Didn't do too much looking around, I must be honest.

Because on this course, we probably would get up to 110, 120.

This is quite a sinuous road, as you can see.

Swoops from the left to the right, you come down here and give it

the boot here and you'd be at the next corner in no time at all.

Absolutely magic. Absolutely magic.

But I realise I am now 83, not 25.

Now I will drive each corner very much more carefully,

with more respect.

Were there any fatalities in 1955, on your...

I believe so, but there were every year, I'm told.

But it's inevitable, that people are going to get killed.

I have heard that the race was stopped on the instructions of the Vatican.

I've heard that, I don't know if it's true.

I couldn't get him on the phone! He was continually engaged.

I would have thought if anybody could get the Pope on the phone, Stirling, it would be you!

At what point did you know that you had won? After you crossed...?

That was the awful thing. I crossed the finish line, no idea.

I knew it was likely I had won, but I had to wait

until every car that started after me had come through.

How did you celebrate that night?

-Gosh, we had celebrations...

-And were you alone?

-Oh, no, no, no.

I hope I had a young lady with me,

but I'd have to look it up in my diary.

-Your little black book.

-Exactly.

Driving the route was like going back in time,

and got me thinking about what I was doing in 1955.

I was just leaving Mirfield Secondary Modern school right then.

I had a crush on the head girl, but she never knew it,

and of course, I was never brave enough to make any kind of advances.

While you were driving young women from Brescia to Stuttgart,

having won the Mille Miglia.

To each his own, old boy!

I'm sorry that I'm not the attractive young woman

you had with you then.

So am I! But I enjoy your company.

Stirling, oh, Lord.

Stirling certainly knew how to live the high life, but I was

learning that when it came to racing, he left nothing to chance.

How did you know what was coming on a 1,000 mile circuit?

Because Jenks was my co-driver, he was my passenger,

and he had this, the thing we called the bog roll.

And on here, as you can see, everything is written.

Various signals here. Come down here, I think that is a railway.

And then something was flat out after a signal like that.

All these things have an interpretation

which he then gave me through hand signals.

Like, slower, and then much slower, right, left, humpbacked bridge,

-all sorts of different hand signals.

-What was "go faster"?

-Go faster was like that. That meant you're flat out.

-It's beautiful.

-It worked.

-Yeah.

But it was the driving seat I wanted to occupy.

OK. Right. So, we're in first.

-Shall I take it out?

-Yeah, take it out.

-GEARS CRUNCH

-Sorry!

-All right.

Ooh, yes, I see.

'Driving a racing legend is nerve-racking, to say the least,

'but behind the wheel of such a beautiful car,

'my confidence started to grow.'

I never imagined a scenario like this in my life.

That doesn't even begin to include you as my passenger

or the road that we're on!

Look at this scenery!

Can you imagine a life much better for a kid of 18

driving all around Europe, racing every weekend

and being able to meet the crumpet and have fun?

Wonderful life.

I've got no problems with it at all.

Now I understand why the Mille Miglia

is without a doubt Stirling Moss's most impressive victory.

With the help of Jenks and his bog roll,

he drove for 10 hours, averaging almost 100mph.

It's that kind of superhuman feat that turns drivers into legends.

-Are you all right?

-Yeah, I'm all right. No problem. No problems.

-I crossed myself a couple of times!

-Thank you, sir!

'A happy homecoming for the 25-year-old racing driver

'who, experts predict, is a future world champion.'

Having conquered Italy in a sports car, Stirling returned home

determined to make a name for himself in Formula One.

At that point, no British driver had ever won a Grand Prix on home soil.

'Moss, with fastest practice lap is in pole position,

'with Fangio next to him.

'And Hawthorn is in an unusual position for him, the fifth row.'

'Here we are, we listen to them come by.

'Here's Stirling Moss in the Mercedes, there's Fangio...'

When it came to Formula One, Stirling would always be

in the shadow of his mentor, the great Fangio.

'In the lead, Fangio is pushed by Moss, who sits right on his tail.'

But in front of a home crowd,

the understudy had the drive of his life.

'Through Melling Crossing goes Fangio, with Moss on his heels.'

'Very close indeed together.'

'Less than a quarter of a mile to go now,

'as they come into Tatts Corner.'

'And the crowds rise to greet Moss.

'And Moss is waving Fangio up and they are going to go across the line,

'giving the victory to Stirling Moss of Great Britain.'

'For the first time in motoring history,

'the British Grand Prix has been won by an Englishman.'

At the age of 25, Stirling Moss had become a national hero.

But he was about to be given a stark reminder that motor racing

was the most deadly sport the world had ever seen.

Moss calmly signing autographs while he waited for Fangio to bring

the Mercedes in for his spell at the wheel.

And just before 6.30, with two and a half hours gone,

disaster struck in the worst motor racing accident in history.

At Le Mans, one of Stirling's Mercedes team-mates was launched into the crowd.

'In a few ghastly seconds, death wipes out whole families.

'Levegh is killed before his wife's eyes

'and some 70 spectators with him.'

Stirling was lucky not to be involved,

but the Mercedes dream was over.

'The full list of casualties from the disaster is announced.

'Stuttgart gives orders to Neubauer in the pit.

'The two Mercedes are withdrawn from the race.'

We pulled out at 4 o'clock in the morning with a three-lap lead on Jaguar.

It wasn't going to bring anybody back.

I don't know why he did that.

So I couldn't win Le Mans.

But not winning was the least of Stirling's worries.

Soon after the disaster, Mercedes retired from motorsport.

'Mr Tony Vandervell, ex-racing driver and wealthy industrialist,

'produced a prototype of the Vanwall Formula One car.'

Stirling was without a Formula One team, but back in Britain,

a car was finally being produced that might challenge the Italian giants.

Tony Vandervell always expressed

his racing ambition as being "to beat those bloody red cars".

'And so, the Vanwall and its engine were slowly and expensively developed.

'A masterpiece of engine design, in a sturdy, yet light chassis.'

18 months after the Le Mans disaster,

Stirling signed up to lead the all-British team.

'The Vanwalls, resplendent in their British racing green

'are manoeuvred into their positions,

'comfortingly near the front of the red machines from Italy.'

We had a car in British racing green

that could beat the others, and so it was a fantastic thing.

But would it be the same old story?

The best of the British was the Vanwall,

but it was unreliable and it wasn't good enough.

But it was getting closer and closer and closer to Ferrari and Maserati.

And then came the British Grand Prix at Aintree in 1957.

The team were desperate to score their first win on home soil

and so Vandervell hatched a plan that would be inconceivable today.

York asked Tony Brooks about his injured leg.

In those days, drivers could swap cars mid-race,

so Stirling's injured team-mate agreed to hand his over if required.

I'd had

my Aston Martin accident at Le Mans just over three weeks beforehand.

I was in a pretty sorry state.

I said, if anything happens to your car, Stirling, you take my car over.

'Now the moment of drama. Engines revving, the air shaking.

'They're off!'

This really set the scene for an extraordinary motor race.

'Now begins a grim race by Moss against the watch.'

Stirling built up a huge lead,

but then the inevitable happened.

My car did have a pipe go, injector pipe, so I went back to the pits.

'Team manager York flags Tony Brooks.

'On lap 27, in he comes.'

Tony sort of acknowledged it

and I think he was quite relieved because he was in considerable pain.

And anyway, we dragged him out of it, and I jumped in.

But by taking Brooks' car,

Moss also took his position in the race and so dropped from first

down to ninth place.

'Moss is away in 12 seconds flat.

'And he's knocking out the fastest laps of the day,

'lap after lap.

'Moss has won back half a minute.'

Everybody's heart is sort of beating faster and faster, palms sweaty.

Against all the odds, he clawed back his lead and made racing history.

'And at last, after so many years of hopes and disappointments,

'a British driver in a British car...'

He won the British Grand Prix in a British car as a British driver.

And that was the first time that had happened.

It subsequently led, I think, to inspiring other designers

to believe that they could win in British cars.

It was a fantastic achievement.

And the Vanwall was the car that he did it in.

To help me understand how ground-breaking

the Vanwall was,

I'm going to achieve a lifelong dream and drive one.

For this I'll need help from an expert, in a car that's been made

to handle just like a Vanwall.

Patrick, one of the troubles with a Vanwall was that it used to understeer a lot.

So we've set this Caterham up to understeer,

so you can get a feel for what might happen.

If you add too much power,

you're just going to push the nose wider and wider and run out of road

and then there's going to be a very expensive and embarrassing moment.

# You shake my nerves and you rattle my brain... #

When cornering, the Vanwall would slide out

to the edge of the track - known in racing circles as "understeer".

Wow!

-Turning in.

-Understeer, understeer!

Oh, I'm running out of road!

I don't want to put a Vanwall in the ditch.

What I was doing there, was giving it that flick, to deliberately

get the rear to break away, to eradicate the understeer.

-Yes.

-But I don't think that's something you should try to do.

The Vanwall I'll be driving is a priceless museum piece,

so it was absolutely crucial I got this right.

TYRES SCREECH

-Ooh.

-You're turning very early, that's...

-Too early?

-Yeah. Which is what pushed us out.

But Tiff persuaded me it would be easier

if I really put my foot down.

Flags out, turn, power, power, power! Hold it, hold it!

Now you're going faster, you've got to ease off the throttle

-to get the opposite lock on.

-Yes.

No matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't get it right.

You won't make it, we're in the field, we're in the field.

That's understeer, that's the field.

Sorry about that.

But after a couple of hours of practice,

I finally started to get the hang of it.

Down to third gear, turn in, and now power, power! Feel that.

And now lift off from here.

You've got it, you've got it, you've got it! Yeah!

Go, go! Yay!

The lesson was over,

but the exercise wasn't academic.

Now...I'm going to drive the real thing.

There's another challenge when the Vanwall gets delivered.

And this time,

I'm going to be under the watchful eye of another driver, Sir Stirling.

I'm a little apprehensive, but I'm sure that there will yet again

be another steep learning curve on this.

It will be a childhood fantasy.

'The British Vanwall cars were driven by Stirling Moss. Could they repeat their Aintree success?'

The next season, the Vanwall team went on to win the first ever Formula One

constructors championship.

'And the first man to congratulate the winner

'was Britain's proudest father.'

Stirling was on a high -

and he'd fallen in love, too.

But some things never change.

'The Mosses are honeymooning in Holland, but only for four days.

'Stirling has to be back in London to judge the Miss World contest.'

Can you imagine getting married to your wife, and saying, "Yeah,

"I know the honeymoon's important, sweetheart,

"but I want to go back to look at some women in bikinis

"and work out who's the best-looking."

Back on the track, Stirling yearned for more than just team success.

In 1958 he wanted that elusive drivers' title.

At that time, the drivers felt that I was the guy to beat.

When the times go up, they'd say, "well, what did Moss do?"

It ended up, the world championship,

being fought out between Stirling

and Mike Hawthorn.

To be able to beat Mike was terribly important to me.

If a foreigner beats me, I don't feel so bad.

But if it's an Englishman, I feel far worse.

That season, he won more races than any other driver.

And in Portugal, the world title seemed in the bag

when Hawthorn was disqualified for receiving a push start.

But then Stirling did an amazing thing.

I went up and said, this is quite wrong.

I said, look, you can't disqualify him for that, he wasn't on the racetrack.

His impeccable sportsmanship handed Hawthorn a single point.

All he needed to win the world championship.

'Stirling Moss, winner of the Grand Prix in his British Vanwall,

'had failed to be the first British champion by one point.'

That cost me one world title. So what?

What I wanted more than anything really,

I think, was the drivers' respect.

'Lewis-Evans is pushed off in the Vanwall.'

To make matters worse, the youngest member

of the Vanwall team was killed in the last race of the season.

Team manager Tony Vandervell decided to pull out of Formula One.

He never really got over the death of Stuart Lewis-Evans.

And I think Tony Vandervell somehow felt partly responsible

because poor Stuart was driving one of his cars.

After yet another disappointment,

Stirling's attitude towards racing started to change.

Stirling Moss, possibly the world's greatest racing driver.

Let's watch him relaxing with a miniature track.

Rival in this grim struggle is his wife, Katie.

'Stirling Moss rockets into sight with Bruce McLaren right on his tail.'

# You keep a-knockin' but you can't come in... #

Instead of the pressure of a top team, Stirling decided to drive

for his friend Rob Walker, the whisky tycoon.

The ethos was very much,

you race hard today and then you party tonight.

'Moss, the master.'

Stirling was very happy driving for Rob Walker.

The problem was, they weren't

a works car manufacturer,

they were using a car that they had bought from someone else.

Nevertheless, Stirling Moss is in the lead.

Without the support of a manufacturer,

Stirling's cars had a tendency to break down.

'Moss was soon in the lead, and might well have won,

'but transmission trouble made him retire.'

'Moss went pretty well until he had gearbox trouble.'

'Out of luck this season, a faulty clutch put Stirling out of the race.'

He finished third in the world championship three years on the trot,

but failing to win a title did nothing to dent his reputation.

I think the public appreciated just how artistic

he was in the delicacy of his driving, the way he held the wheel.

The British public love an underdog.

Every now and then, Stirling would win against all the odds

and at Monaco he came out on top when he lined up

against the Ferraris in Rob Walker's aging British Lotus.

He was driving an older chassis.

It just puts into perspective what a remarkable, remarkable drive

that was from Stirling on that sunny afternoon in Monte Carlo.

'On the 13th lap, Moss goes into the lead,

'despite the efforts of the far more powerful Ferraris.'

'With the entire Ferrari team in full cry behind him, round and

'round the classic Monaco circuit, he drives the race of his life.'

Stirling trounced the red Italians so convincingly,

it made Enzo Ferrari take note.

After a decade of separation, Stirling was invited to Maranello

for a meeting with the Old Man.

He called me up and said, would I go and see him down in Modena.

Ferrari met me and he said, "Look, will you drive for me?"

He said to Stirling, just tell me what you need...

..in a car, and I'll build it for you.

And that was how desperate he was to have Moss in one of his cars.

And amazingly, Enzo Ferrari, the Old Man himself,

agreed that he would sell a car to Rob Walker,

for Rob Walker to run in their colours, not even in Ferrari red,

and for Stirling to drive that car in the world championship.

Very soon, I'll get to drive one of Stirling's cars

but first I'm at the Ferrari factory, where he finally

made peace with Enzo, putting the world title within his grasp.

Enzo would have had the best driver in the world at that time

-in what should have been the best car in the world.

-Yes.

What do you think would have resulted from that combination?

Well, I think, hopefully, a world championship.

-Well, more than one world championship.

-That didn't happen.

-No.

Because of the crash.

Stirling never drove his Ferrari, because in a pre-season race he was

involved in an accident that ended his career.

How it happened remains a mystery.

I was passing in a place I would never consider passing under normal conditions.

And I was miles behind it, so there was no reason...

I wasn't dicing for the last corner of the last lap.

His crash was a national disaster

which...produced an atmosphere

of national anguish.

Not Stirling Moss. It didn't happen to him.

He was too good to crash.

To this day, Stirling believes the car was to blame

and that the crash wouldn't have happened in his Ferrari.

The one thing I respect Ferrari above anything else is no driver

that I know of has ever died because of mechanical failure on a car.

If the car had only arrived in England early enough

so I could have raced it at Goodwood, I wouldn't have had my crash,

and it would have been a wonderful relationship.

-It could have been perfect.

-It could have been.

But it wasn't.

Stirling was rushed to hospital as the nation feared for his life.

Oh, all racing drivers kill themselves -

that was the public attitude. And now it was Moss's turn.

The whole nation stopped,

basically waiting to find out what was going to happen.

We're hoping that he will keep going on slowly.

I mean, we can't expect miracles to happen. It's got to be a slow job.

Are you going to try and persuade him to stop racing after this?

I shall ask him, yes. I haven't before, but this time, I shall.

Definitely.

Stirling woke from a month-long coma paralysed down one side of his body.

But the nation's relief turned to fear that he may never return to the track.

Quite honestly, I have too much pride, I suppose,

to want to go in racing and find myself trailing round at the back.

If you find you're punch-drunk, I reckon you get out of it.

He had suffered serious brain damage which he would

take years to recover from, but that didn't stop the media asking

the same old question.

How soon do you think you'll be back on the track again?

That depends on the doctors, quite honestly.

He didn't get well for a very long time after that.

And until he was on form,

it was ridiculous for anybody

to think that he could test drive.

Any fool could have looked at him and said,

you know, why are you doing this?

The weight of expectation from the British public

pushed Stirling into attempting a comeback way before he was ready.

Just 12 months had passed

when he made the biggest decision of his life.

I came down here and I drove the car round

for about three quarters of an hour.

It dawned on me slowly, but very surely,

that the things that I required had gone.

What was second nature to me originally

was now a conscious effort.

A lot of things had changed.

I felt it would be, therefore, unwise to continue racing.

If the crash hadn't happened,

and the Ferrari had been delivered,

and you had won maybe, in '62, the world championship...

-Yeah.

-And perhaps the next year,

for how long do you think you would have continued to race Formula One?

I had hoped that I would race until I was well into my 50s.

My whole life would have changed.

I was forced out of racing at the age of just 32

and I didn't know what the hell to do. It's a shame,

because I think my life could have been a lot more rewarding.

I wish so, too.

The more time I spent with Stirling, the more

I came to an unlikely conclusion -

by ending his career, the accident was in fact a blessing.

You know that there are people who believe

that that crash at Goodwood in 1962

actually saved your life?

Yes, but they don't know the situation.

They're therefore assuming that I'm going to have another crash.

Quite honestly, if you look back over the whole of my career,

I did not have any serious crash that was my fault.

Why should I have another accident?

Odds. The more races that you're in, the odds become shorter and shorter.

And the more experienced you get.

Do you think you're indestructible?

I think that with a Ferrari as my car,

I think that we would have won quite a lot.

It has turned out to be getting to know an extraordinary individual.

This is a man who said that he did what he did

not in spite of the danger,

but because of the danger!

I have resisted making connections

and comparisons between my life and career and yours

because this has been about you, and not about me.

-Yeah.

-But it has been, what I have learnt about a man of passion

and ambition and feeling and self-belief

that has so affected me

and I shall take all that and put it into my life and my career.

It's a much overused phrase,

but you are an inspiration to me.

'We don't have, in our country,'

the title national treasure. But if we had it,

the first to receive it should be Sir Stirling Moss.

There remains just one thing for me to do.

55 years after the Vanwall's big victory, I'm on my way to Aintree -

where the tarmac track still exists.

I want to re-live the moment

an all-British team won a British Grand Prix -

the start of Formula One as we know it.

How often does anybody get an opportunity to drive,

on the same racecourse that Stirling actually won the British Grand Prix

in the car that he was driving?

Now Stirling and his team-mate Tony are going to

guide me through that most memorable race.

Somewhere here, there is a Vanwall waiting for me.

I shall get my first sight of it and my first touch of it...

um, climbing into it.

Yes, there we are. Fine.

There we are, this is the beautiful Vanwall.

-This is beautiful.

-You are allowed to touch it, if you want.

-Oh, Lord, I'm not sure that I should!

-You'll be getting in there!

I found it a very difficult car to drive.

-Yes, that's right, it was rather heavy, rather ponderous.

-Yes.

Look upon it as a blind date.

You never know what you've got till you get in, you know?!

I'm back in my comfort zone at this moment

because I'm putting on a costume, and that's something I'm used to.

Because what I want to do is enjoy myself.

I'm probably not going to have a day like this again.

Here's a helmet. Look after that, please. It's mine.

-This is the original?

-It's the original.

-It's lightweight. These are made for polo.

-Polo?

-So don't break it.

Good luck. Enjoy yourself.

With Stirling's helmet, gloves, and his blessing, I was going to follow in his footsteps.

I'm ready, yeah.

ENGINE STALLS

-A few more... Sorry.

-Has it stopped?

-No, it's stopped.

You don't just jump in a Vanwall and go shopping.

It is quite a complicated thing.

INAUDIBLE

'The flag is up.'

'They're off!'

He's gone!

My second attempt was better, and as I entered

the first straight, it felt like the Vanwall was beginning to fly.

It was hard to control, it wasn't very comfortable,

but this beautiful car does have one major attribute -

it goes really, really fast.

'Now winding it up as he roars on.

'On past the railway carriages,

'now past the huge crowd on the embankment.

'Under the giant scoreboard for the last time in this race,

'through the Melling Crossing...'

'With people rising in their seats in the grandstand,

'ready to proclaim a fine victory and a well-deserved victory.

'Stirling Moss, coming by, waving to the crowds.

'And Stirling Moss comes up to the finishing line

'and the chequered flag drops as Stirling Moss wins

'the British Grand Prix and indeed, this year, the European Grand Prix,

'for that is the honour which is being bestowed upon England this year...'

COMMENTARY FADES

-Enjoy it?

-Feels wonderful, Stirling.

It feels absolutely brilliant.

Oh, Lord! This beats the Enterprise any day!

Exhilaration and satisfaction was...

Well, let me just say, I will try and hold on to it

till the day I die, if I can. Because it feels so good.

Thank you for spending this time with me

and giving me some of your hard-earned,

long-earned experience.

Because I consider it one of the great privileges of my life.

I can't stop grinning!

Perhaps my proudest feeling is that here it is, folks,

I give it back to you. It's unharmed, untouched.

And for this relief, much thanks!

# I'm going to live till I die

# I'm going to laugh 'stead of cry

# I'm going to take the town and turn it upside down

# I'm going to live live, live, live, live

# Until I die! #