This prototype modern professional racing driver proved the efficacy of Britain’s blueprint for progression within a junior formulae structure. The 500cc bike-engined Formula 3 buzz bombs – with their obvious link to the pre-war appetite for sparse hillclimb/sprint specials – were an austerity product: simple, frugal and (relatively) cheap. The ‘karting’ for a formative Moss, he raced them until long after he had become an established name, for he reckoned rightly that the category’s emphasis on maintaining momentum within its swirling cut and thrust kept him sharp.

They stood him in good stead in another way, too. His bespoke Kieft of 1951-52 was in the vanguard of variable suspension set-ups for differing circuits. A stable understeerer, it enabled him to brake later and carry more speed, in the manner of the Formula 1 of some 10 years hence. Only following Fangio taught him more.

Formula 2, in contrast, was not a British construct, but it allowed its constructors/teams with more moxie than money – Connaught, Cooper and HWM, etc – to visit the Continental spiritual home of motor racing, as well as tackle the undulating, constant-radius perimeter roads of its local bomber base tracks: trickier than they looked and handily more forgiving of mistakes, the latter were another British blueprint for the sport’s future look; and another long-term benefit for Moss.

Moss the buccaneer was in no mood to wait and see, however, and he jumped at the chance to fly the UK nest in 1950 with HWM, to learn the black arts that gave the more experienced Alfa Romeo, Ferrari and Maserati their advantage. He drove quickly enough to invoke world champion-elect Giuseppe Farina’s ire – much to the amusement of the following Fangio – and to hurt himself when HWM’s build quality wilted under the strain he imposed. He was making a name for himself – and had caught Enzo’s eye.

Moss was right up Ferrari’s strada: an acrobatic risk-taker with a sixth sense, he was the new Nuvolari. Yet they would fall out when the youngster was left high and dry and embarrassed at the Bari GP of 1951. He would never forget – and would only forgive some 10 years later – his shoddy treatment by an apparently unrepentant Commendatore: the F2 car promised him had been awarded to another at the eleventh hour. This was a knockback: Moss should have been picking low-dangling fruit aboard that now dominant Ferrari 500, as a struggling world championship turned to F2; instead he was waylaid by that fruitless (at the time) search for a British winner. It did, however, wise him up: the swirling cut-and-thrust did not end at the track’s edge.

Though he loved beating Ferraris most of all, born winner Moss hardly ever lacked for motivation. His off days were as rare as hen’s teeth, as were his days off. F2 would remain integral to a crammed diary until that enforced retirement, and bring him success with Porsche and Borgward’s fuel-injected engine. Non-championship F1 races abounded and often were world championship events in all but name; and he gave them his all. The big-engined Cooper built for 1961’s short-lived InterContinental rival to the ‘Dinky’ 1.5-litre F1 was one of Moss’ favourites – he lapped the entire field with it at a wet Silverstone – and the quirks of the four-wheel-drive Ferguson P99 fascinated him; total traction’s ultimately underwhelming story in F1 might have been more upbeat had his insightful and inspirational input not been so brutally interrupted.

The only glaring gap in his single-seater CV was Indianapolis. Moss, though indisputably fond of a bob or two, eschewed the big bucks on offer Stateside and was unusually uninformed about The Brickyard: its contestants only turned left and didn’t race in the rain. He couldn’t resist showing America’s best what was what at the 1958 Race of Two Worlds on Monza’s bankings. Venturing out during wet practice, he almost crashed. He would discover, too, that there was more to oval racing than straight-line grunt; the Indy roadsters eked their edge over his Maserati-based special on those perilous bankings. And it was tough work, the high g loadings breaking his steering and causing him the scariest accident of his career – bar one.

The Americans had earned his respect – and he theirs – but still he shunned the 500. True, trans-Atlantic jet travel was in its infancy, and May was a crunch point in the European season, but the sport’s superstar could have found room. Given all of the above (and below) – the numerous and various challenges offered, accepted, met and dispatched – it’s surprising that he never would be so minded.