From the moment Stirling Moss alighted from his first test of a Mercedes-Benz in December 1954 – an immaculate mechanic snapping to with hot water, soap, flannel and a clean towel – his world was never the same again and, despite his repeated ‘failures’ to become its official champion, nor would F1 be. For although five-time champion Juan Fangio was a household name, human dynamo Moss would become a global presence. His openness and willingness would accelerate its growth and extend its reach, and his stubbornness and genius would ensure that Britain eventually benefited most.

F1’s 1954 return after a two-year Formula 2 interregnum – during which Moss had at best marked time in homegrown, undercooked machinery – brought a change of tack: ‘Pa’ Moss got ‘The Boy’ a Maserati 250F. Moss had it painted British racing green – young habits die hard – and set about convincing any doubters. An impressed works team drew him increasingly under its wing and the car would be entirely red – bar green noseband – by September’s Italian Grand Prix; Moss was a dozen laps from victory when its oil tank split. Mercedes-Benz, always the intended target, was convinced and formed a superteam to match its ambition and budget. Fangio remained virtually unassailable at the highest level, but it was very clear as to who would be picking up the great man’s baton in Formula 1.

Moss duly did so, having become already the first Briton to win a world championship GP (in 1955) and – patriotic persistence rewarded – the first to score such a victory in a British car (1957), at Aintree in Mercedes-Benz and Vanwall respectively. The desolation he felt in 1958 at yet again being beaten to the world title – this time by a single point by counterpoint countryman Mike Hawthorn – would eventually give way to the realisation that he didn’t need to be crowned to be recognised as king by rivals and public alike. Moss decided to be kinder to himself from that point on and became a buccaneering privateer when every works team was scrambling to gain his signature.

Enlightenment would produce his best work, as the first to decode the dynamic benefits of placing engine behind driver, within a stiffer frame blessed with improved geometries and repeatable disc brakes rather than drums that grabbed before fading quickly. That signature laid-back driving style remained unaltered, but the insouciance it engendered masked an enquiring mind. Moss mastered swiftly the shallower/trail-braking corner entries now available, to carry more speed while using less road. Those who gave vain chase were left gasping and bamboozled.

The peerless Moss in turn had eyes on the road, on the gauges flickering to the inherent unreliability of this more fragile machinery – British primacy was undeniable but not yet entirely robust – and also on the pretty girl in the crowd. It wasn’t just what he won but how he did so that was important, to him and his fans. Sensible chaps in worsted and brogues admired/envied him, fluttery mums in twinsets wanted to be with him, and schoolboys agog queued reverentially for his autograph. Moss had it all. Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin had to circle the Earth to upstage him.

Yet Moss’ fame was about to rocket, too – as all else was seemingly snatched from him. His grievous accident in a non-championship Formula 1 race at Goodwood on the Easter Monday of 1962 left his life hanging by jangled neurons while an increasingly connected world strained to every bulletin. He emerged from hospital six months later with a limp, a sunken eye and a nagging doubt: could he bounce back from injury, as he had before?

No. His exploratory test of a Lotus sports-racer at Goodwood brought a single insight: that spare capacity had been scrambled. He was 32, and had planned to race into his 40s. That would have involved his having to adapt to F1’s fundamental shifts of slicks-and-wings and sponsors – all of which surely would have been a cinch for the ‘old’ Moss. The ‘new’ Moss, however, could neither risk being merely very good nor afford the time to be so. To his surprise, he had emerged from hospital as a brand that needed protecting and capitalising.

The F1 that he had helped create would become richer and safer – he preferred the former – than he could have imagined, but it did so with the irreplaceable ‘Mr Motor Racing’ as a revered and vital link to its past glories. Moss was 90 when he died in April 2020 and had not raced a current F1 car for 58 years, yet indubitably his passing marked the end of an epoch. F1 is left facing its next and potentially last (if it’s not careful) fundamental shift as the world moves away from traditional engine power, without its touchstone.