Commitment

Large swatches of Top Gear feature articles are devoted, directly or indirectly, to commitment. Whether it be the commitment required to keep up with a 530-hp Ford GT in a 300-hp Focus RS, or the bravery and balls and raw skill needed to beat a bunch of heavyweight Auto Unions in a tiny underpowered Alfa at the Nürburgring. Or even being committed enough to do 700 miles in a Ford Anglia to tell a story about motorways. There's a lot of commitment here. And we'd like to kick it all off with a man: Sir Stirling Moss OBE.

If the very idea of commitment could be refined and distilled into human form, surely it would be he. Moss' achievements are many, but his win in the Mille Miglia in 1955, in the Mercedes 300 SLR, stands above all else, and it encapsulates the very idea of commitment we're celebrating in this here. In arguably the single greatest competitive drive of all time, Moss and codriver Denis Jenkinson completed the 1,000-mile route from Brescia to Rome and back in 10 hours, seven minutes and 48 seconds — a time that would never be beaten — and averaged a terrifying 98 mph. Is it any wonder Mercedes has named its last SLR after Sir Stirling to celebrate him and the car he drove?

"The Mille Miglia was the only race that really frightened me. At least until the flag fell at the start — you just got on with it after that. The thought of going out and driving a car with that capability with 800-odd other cars leaving at 30-second intervals was very daunting. Of course, I didn't have to overtake them all. Half of them fell off. Italian hairdressers see, with go-faster stripes."

The raffish Moss, 80 years young this September, remains fit and has the wit of someone half his age. And yet for one so venerated, he is entirely, amazingly, without ego. If not quite on a par with the late Peter Ustinov, he's still a marvelous raconteur, his pronunciation and diction immaculate and compelling. He was 25 when he won the '55 Mille, his commitment absolute.

"It was much more difficult than winning Le Mans. The stress on the car is much higher, you're racing on public roads...It was an extremely intense 10 hours. The steering was never heavy, because you only use the wheel to present the car, and then you put your foot down and that takes over: You use the power to steer it. The biggest effort is in being ready to catch it. You need to be ready to react instantly. The mental thing is much more tiring than the physical thing.

"Driving in a road race requires a very distinct technique. I could learn the Targa Florio, but you can't learn 1,000 miles. Crazy spectators lined the road, and you couldn't see the apex of the corners, so you drove with the knowledge that maybe as you go round a corner, it's going to get tighter.

"In the final stage of the race we were doing up to 180 mph. The first cars had been going for 10 hours by the time I caught up with them on the last bit into Brescia. Isetta bubble cars tuned up would do 70 mph. I went by them at maybe 160. The roads weren't great and had a vicious camber, so they'd do this," — he wobbles his hands — "because when an SLR Mercedes goes past you at those sorts of speeds, there's a lot of turbulence."

Does he consider himself brave?

"To me, bravery doesn't come into it. Because bravery means overcoming fear and I wasn't scared. There were times during the race when I might have frightened myself a bit...when the back end got away or when I maybe went into a corner a bit too fast. Bravery and stupidity are very closely related! It's confidence. You have to be confident in the signals your codriver gives you, and confident in your car as well as your team.

"The organization was so good. I remember driving around Monza in a GP, following Fangio, and the windscreen broke. I came in pointing at a nonexistent bit of glass and 39 seconds later a new one was fitted. That was great. The next race, if one got broken I'd push a button and another one would flip up. They were incredible. If I wanted my steering wheel a bit bigger or smaller, they'd do it. We had 56 mechanics, unbelievable back then."

In those days, racing and death went hand-in-hand. There wasn't any way to avoid it.

"One of the reasons I went into racing was because it was dangerous. And it was. We lost three or four drivers a year. You've just got to have the confidence to believe that it isn't going to happen to you. It may be foolhardy, but you're not going to be able to live with it otherwise. You're either a person who relishes the thrills and risks of what you're doing, or you're not — and so in that case you should be a librarian or a chef.

"We all knew what the dangers were. I mean, there was nobody else in the car holding your foot down. Of course, it affected your reputation and your pride. And if you backed off too much or drove too slowly, you wouldn't get signed up.

"It's the difference between racing in a car where a mistake could kill you, and where a mistake would take you out of the race. I would not enjoy racing today as much as I did then, that's for damn sure. It was a very different mindset. You could get killed. It was like a war game where you use live ammunition rather than dummy bullets. I remember a few years ago a driver only trying to finish fourth because that gave him the title. For me the most important race of my life was always today, because I could win or get killed. What mattered to me was the respect of the other drivers, and that when the practice times were published, I was at the top. I think Lewis Hamilton is the same."

And what about safety? What does Moss think about the clinical, FIA-protected, cocooned F1 pilots of today?

"If someone had come along in my era and said, 'I think we should remove those trees, they're dangerous,' we would have laughed and said, 'Well, don't bloody hit them, then!'

"When I started, my father said, 'You'll have to wear a crash helmet,' and I said to him, 'Dad, that's a bit sissy.' None of the fast drivers of the time wore crash helmets, they wore cloth helmets. So I had to wear a crash hat. It probably weighed two pounds. I raced in short sleeves most of the time, to get a sun tan. I never wore a seat belt, of course, because of fear of fire. You had to be able to get out of there in a real hurry if the car caught fire."

Back to the 1955 Mille, then. Senses heightened by the use of then-legal amphetamines, some bits of the adventure were more adventurous than others. Moss is dismissive of the Mille's famous mountain passes — "not that difficult," he says. "I would have averaged about 120 mph without them," but he reckons the biggest moment came when he hit a humpback bridge late in the race.

"Jenks had given me the signal that it was OK flat, and we went over the damn thing at 150 or 160 mph. In practice, we hadn't gone any faster than 120 mph. Well, at 160 mph we took off and the bloody thing was flying. It was a dead straight road, but I knew it was a bit dodgy. We were airborne for quite a few seconds.

"The steering obviously went a bit light...and we landed and Jenks and I looked at each other and just went—" He pulls a quizzical expression and shrugs.

And perhaps more than anything, it's Moss' competitive streak that outweighs everything else and gives him that fabled commitment to pushing harder, going faster, not lifting off.

"Yes, I am very competitive. I'd race you on foot to the bottom of the street."