But it is another man whose exploits I wish to discuss first, the man who 50 years ago this month became the first British driver to win the British Grand Prix in a British car. This achievement was not reported on the sports pages because Formula One was not then considered a sport, but 27-year-old Stirling Moss did not want for appreciation on the front pages. "Stirling Moss, driving like a superman, won the British Grand Prix at Aintree yesterday in a borrowed Vanwall, " reported the now-defunct Empire News on 21 July 1957.

The winning Vanwall had begun the race in the capable hands of Moss's teammate Tony Brooks, but when Moss's car suffered plug trouble, Brooks, still aching from an accident at Le Mans, was happy to vacate the cockpit.

Switching cars was allowed in those days, but it meant Moss fell six laps behind. Winning the race seemed impossible, but remorselessly, averaging 86.8mph, he crept up from ninth place to overhaul the leaders in the nick of time.

The 77-year-old Stirling Moss is scarcely less dashing than his younger self. He greets me at the front door of his home where he has lived since 1958 and guides me through to his study. There are models of the cars he drove, signed photographs of Fangio and Senna, and a shelf of scrapbooks containing all the press cuttings relating to his racing career, with yet more scrapbooks detailing his private life. It tickles him that there are fewer of the former than the latter. "I got more column inches by taking out crumpet than winning races, " he says.

I ask him about the two badly buckled steering wheels mounted on his study wall. One came from the Lotus 18 in which he crashed at Spa in 1960, breaking his back. To everyone's astonishment, he was driving again within seven weeks. The other was rescued from the Lotus in which he suffered his epic crash at Goodwood in 1962, the one that left him in a coma for a month and partially paralysed for six months. There was no coming back from that one.

"Altogether I had seven wheels come off, eight brake failures, and twice I had the steering sheer, where you're going round a corner and suddenly your arms cross, " he says cheerfully. He is extraordinarily lucky to be here telling the tale, I suggest.

"Yes, I'm still the right side of the grass, " he says.

How did he feel when he saw other drivers . . . in some years as many as four . . . being killed? "Awful, of course, but at least they died doing what they wanted to do, and I could usually conclude that had it been me, I would frankly have been going a bit slower there.

You had to have confidence in yourself. The worst thing was when they died as a result of mechanical failure, not through any fault of their own. Stuart Lewis-Evans (his Vanwall teammate who suffered a fatal crash in Casablanca in 1958) was terribly brave, but bravery and stupidity are very close and if you're too brave, you're stupid. Some people are braver than others, of course. I wouldn't dive off a 30ft diving board if you gave me a thousand quid."

Nonetheless, he concedes that the danger was one of the reasons he raced. "Oh yes, the bravado of youth and all that. The excitement, the colour, the crumpet. And the money too.

"Sure. I was the highestpaid driver in '61. I did 52 races and my total gross was 32,000 quid, which is the equivalent of over half a million today. You'd have to be a fairly successful lawyer to get that sort of money."

If he were driving now the rewards would be substantially greater, and the health risks substantially smaller.

He laments much that has disappeared in Formula One, but is there anything about the sport in the 21st century that he would transplant to the past, starting with the riches?

"Not the money, no. If you're earning that much you begin to worry about it.

Here's old Michael getting �70 million a year. He must be thinking 'God, what am I going to do with it? Have I invested it properly?'" A chuckle, then a frown. "No, I think they have emasculated our sport. They say that next year they will do away with traction control, as they have tried to do before, but if they manage it this time it will be an enormous step towards making racing what it should be, the best driver winning in the best car. I drove a Formula One car about six years ago, you know.

I was doing 190mph on the straight, and I backed off coming into the corner, then found I had to accelerate to get to the corner. When you lift off the pedal on a car now, at 190mph, you get greater deceleration than I ever got on any car I drove with the brakes hard on. That's staggering, don't you think? A modern driver wouldn't drive one of ours now. He'd get in and say 'Christ, no brakes, no road holding . . .'" And yet for all that, he still thinks that Hamilton is potentially up there with Fangio?

"Well, it's very difficult, really, to compare people from the dangerous era . . . which lasted until Jackie Stewart came along, I would say . . .

with the modern era. It's almost impossible to get killed now, as we saw with that guy Kubica in the Canadian Grand Prix recently. But as a driver, and also as a person, I would rate Fangio the best ever. Lewis is very similar.

"The thing is, he's not just a driver, he's a racer. In all my 525 races I saw only three or four who were racers, by which I mean that whatever happened they went all out to win. Schumacher was a racer early on, but not later. But if you watch Lewis's style, if there's a gap, suddenly he's there. And he doesn't make mistakes. Alonso's a terrific driver but he makes mistakes.

Hamilton is better than Alonso, no question. I feel very sorry for Alonso. Can you imagine, Ron Dennis comes in and says 'you're twice the world champion and if you want a third then come to me because I've got the best car'.

So you join the team and find some guy you've never heard of who's as good as Fangio?

"Fangio was a very humble man, you know, as is Hamilton. Lewis won everything in karts. He doesn't come to this as an amateur. He's already won every damn thing there was to win in his chosen field.

He's quite remarkable and we're very lucky to have him.

"To have a person like this in motor racing is exciting for lots of people."

BRITISH GRAND PRIX Silverstone, 1.00 Live, Setanta, 12.15; ITV 12.00