Stirling Moss, the British racing driver who ranked as an all-time Formula One great despite never winning the world championship, died on Sunday at the age of 90 after a long illness.

“He died as he lived, looking wonderful,” his wife Susie told the Daily Mail newspaper.

”He simply tired in the end and he just closed his beautiful eyes and that was that.”

A teammate at Mercedes to Argentine five-time world champion Juan Manuel Fangio, the Briton survived one of the deadliest eras of motorsport with 16 Grand Prix wins in the 1950s and early 1960s.

Four times a championship runner-up, and also third overall on three occasions, no other driver has won as many races without taking the title.

Moss was the first Briton to win his home Grand Prix, beating Fangio at Liverpool’s Aintree circuit for Mercedes in 1955, with his name becoming a byword for speed for a generation of fans.

He also won Grands Prix in Maserati, Vanwall, and Rob Walker-entered Cooper and Lotus cars.

News of his passing was mourned across the world of motorsport, with Formula One and Jean Todt, president of the governing FIA, hailing a ‘legend’ of the sport and ‘one of the true greats’.