Still the decision to quit must have been terribly tough. More than anyone else I have met save Senna, Stirling is defined by his sport. They even called him Mr Motor Racing for goodness sake. I remember talking to Tony Brooks about why he never looked back after quitting in 1961 and he said simply “racing was only ever going to be part of my life and that part was over. Unlike Stirling: racing is his life”.
How will he take to retirement? Well, he might have retired from racing, but I imagine the rest of his life will continue at the same frenetic pace. He will be as in demand as ever and I cannot see him withdrawing from public life for a moment. And I look forward to seeing what kind of celebration of his career will be staged at the Goodwood Festival of Speed next month.
In the meantime, perhaps you’d care to share your best Stirling moment with us? Mine is watching him coax a Lotus Cortina into a drift through Goodwood’s Fordwater kink at a hundred and goodness knows how many miles per hour. It was pure mastery from a man who, at the time, was just a few days short of his 77th birthday.
Stirling, I’m not going to say we’ll miss you because I’m sure you’re not going anywhere. Instead I’ll just say thanks for everything and hope to see you, if not actually on, then at least at the track for many, many years to come.