Sir Stirling Moss believes modern Formula 1 has lost some of its excitement with the recent advances in safety.
Moss, who raced in the ’50s when death was common place in motor sport, believes F1 is no more dangerous than football and has lost some of its appeal because of that.
“[Danger] made the former racing much more exciting than it is today,” the 82-year-old told Motorline. “The appeal was the danger. Motor racing was a very dangerous sport – and if you’re a young man, you want to experience something exciting.
“I just didn’t care, the risk didn’t matter to me. I just wanted that feeling that I’m driving the race car as fast as possible – that’s all I thought about when I was in the car.”
Whilst it might not hold the same excitement as it once previously did, Moss supports the continued push for safety which has resulted in no deaths since Ayrton Senna in 1994.
“F1 has become a safe sport,” he continued. “It has become as dangerous as football. This is fantastic, the cars are built of carbon fibre and withstand incredible forces. There has been much progress.
“I think that times have changed. That athletes die in competition is today regarded as unacceptable. In the post-war years, it was terrible of course, if an athlete has died in a race, but it wasn’t completely unacceptable. Today it isn’t accepted any more.”
Moss’s proposal to rediscover some of that lost excitement is to rid the modern tracks of their endless run-off areas which fail to punish a driver if they make a mistake.
“I think that todays F1 would be even more exciting if you were to build walls at the edge of the track along the entire course. Then you would see how good the current drivers are.”
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