“Stirling Moss: All my races” (Book review)

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Whether it’s Felipe Massa racing karts in Brazil during the off-season or Robert Kubica sampling a rally car, it’s always great to see Grand Prix drivers tackling different categories.

A pity it happens so infrequently. In the early years of the championship F1 drivers regularly entered different disciplines in between Grands Prix – sometimes even on the same weekend.

This new book chronicles Stirling Moss’s entire racing career, covering almost 600 races in F1, F3, touring cars, sports cars, rallies, time trials and more.

Best of all, the commentary on the races is supplied by Moss himself (co-written by Alan Henry). And although, by his own admission, his 80-year-old memory doesn’t serve him quite as well when it comes to recalling his earliest races, it is rich with interesting anecdotes.

He is frank and direct about his cars – and his driving – in a way modern drivers simply aren’t. Speaking of the Maserati 450S Zagato he drove in the 1957 Le Mans 24 Hours he writes: “This was a genuinely bad car, though I suppose I have to take a slice of [the] responsibility.” Roughly translated into modern F1 driver-speak that would come out as “For sure we are not where we want to be but we are working very hard and the boys have done a fantastic job so we will see what happens in the next race. For sure.”

The entries are accompanied by a wealth of contemporary pictures, newspaper clippings and race programmes, building up a detailed record of Moss’s career.

The first thing that strikes you is just how much racing Grand Prix drivers did in his time. The F1 calendar may have included a dozen races or fewer, but Moss was making multiple starts almost every weekend of the season.

And his win rate was simply staggering – around 40% of the races he took part in, he won – and this was in the days when reliability was far worse than it is today.

In among the litany of great races from the Monaco Grand Prix to the Targa Florio are oddities like a publicity stunt to drive a new Jaguar non-stop at an average speed of over 100mph for a week. Yes, a whole week…

The book concludes with Moss’s career-ending crash at Goodwood in 1962. His subsequent comeback for Audi in 1979 in touring car racing are mentioned only in passing and, in truth, is best left forgotten anyway.

The 30 price tag is a bit steep, and if you already have a copy of “My cars, my career” on your shelves you might find it surplus to requirements.

But I enjoyed the format very much and would like to see it repeated with some more of F1’s great drivers.

RaceFans rating

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Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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8 comments on ““Stirling Moss: All my races” (Book review)”

  1. Anything over £10 is a bit expensive for me,but for sure if I can in the near future I will try to have this book.

  2. Roughly translated into modern F1 driver-speak that would come out as “For sure we are not where we want to be but we are working very hard and the boys have done a fantastic job so we will see what happens in the next race. For sure.”

    I love the translation Keith, it seems to me that the word’s “for sure” are programmed to spew out of a gp drivers mouth at least once every sentence these days!

    1. I’m sure that’s a direct quote of Massa, Keith. ;)

  3. For sure we are not where we want to be but we are working very hard and the boys have done a fantastic job so we will see what happens in the next race. For sure.

    I believe the technical term for my reaction to this is “PMSL” ;)

  4. Might have to ask for that for Xmas!

    Might be a bit disturbing though. I’ve heard he never recovered from his amnesia after that accident. I always thought there is a marked difference in appearance between pre and post brain damage Stirling (I don’t mean that in a nasty way… poor bloke).

  5. Never much of a fan of Moss but he was a truly great driver. I will definately get this.

  6. Just wondering if the rating of this is mainly a reflection of the price and treading the same ground as the earlier book? Would t be a 5 otherwise?

    1. @keithcollantine Any chance you can remember?

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