Eternal runner-up in the world!
"No way! The (Swiss ice hockey) national team remains without a goal for the third World Cup final in a row and loses 0:1 in overtime, just like last year. Finland is world champion", headlined the Swiss daily newspaper "Blick" yesterday. But hats off to the Swiss national team's performance and cheer up, because even as perennial runners-up in the World Cup you can make yourself immortal. Now you're probably wondering why we're suddenly reporting on ice hockey. But there is a good parallel to our topic.
Sir Stirling Moss is still considered one of the best racing drivers of all time. At the 1955 Mille Miglia, he made himself immortal with the absolute track record in the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR. He is often mentioned in the same breath as Michael Schumacher, Ayrton Senna, Jim Clark and Juan-Manuel Fangio, against whom he lost the world championship three times. He never won the title, but was runner-up four times in a row (1955, 1956, 1957 and 1958). Today he is world-famous as the eternal runner-up champion. If the million-dollar question was who became F1 World Champion in 1964, very few people would be able to answer it. However, most people would probably know the eternal runner-up.
After the withdrawal of Mercedes-Benz in 1955, when the Briton finished runner-up behind Juan-Manuel Fangio, Moss switched to Maserati in 1956 and again "only" finished second behind the Argentinian. In 1957 and 1958, he drove the Vanwall and again only narrowly missed out to Fangio.
In 1958, Moss won four races and his opponent Mike Hawthorn in the Ferrari won just one, but the five second places gave the latter the title by a one-point margin.
Sir Stirling Moss was a terrific racing driver and a great gentleman to boot. When Hawthorn was threatened with disqualification in Portugal, Moss stood up against it. He later said: "If I hadn't stood up for him so strongly back then, I would have been the 1958 world champion, but I would do it again and again because it was simply fair."
In 1999, Queen Elizabeth ll elevated him to the peerage as "Knight Bachelor" and so he became "Sir" Stirling Moss.
Who knows what will be bestowed on the Swiss ice hockey team after their fourth runner-up title ...
