Formula One great Sir Stirling Moss has announced his retirement from motor racing - at the age of 81.
Moss, widely regarded as the greatest driver never to have won the Formula One championship, made his decision in the Le Mans pit lane where he had been due to race his own restored 1961 Porsche RS61 in a Legends race.
He said: "This afternoon I scared myself and I’ve always said that if I felt I wasn’t up to it or that I was getting in the way of fellow competitors, then I would retire.
"I love racing, but now it’s time to stop".
Four times a Formula One World championship runner-up, Moss ended his professional career after a bad accident at Goodwood in 1962 but continued to race historic cars for his own pleasure.
The Porsche he would have raced at Le Mans was damaged at Laguna Seca in California in August 2010 when he spun off and was hit by a Lotus.
Moss turned professional at the age of 18 in 1948, racing a Cooper 500 two years before the Formula One World championship started, with his 1955 Mille Miglia victory for Mercedes a career highlight.
He survived a three-storey plunge down a lift shaft at home in March 2010, breaking both ankles and four bones in his feet, but recovered to get back behind the wheel again by July.
Moss was a contemporary of the late Argentine World champion Juan Manuel Fangio and won 16 Grands Prix, one more than either McLaren's Lewis Hamilton or Red Bull's reigning World champion Sebastian Vettel has to his credit.
He lost the 1958 title by a single point to conpatriot Mike Hawthorn, Britain’s first F1 champion, despite winning four races to Hawthorn’s one. - Reuters