Iconic Formula One racing driver Sir Stirling Moss has died at the age of 90.

He had been suffering through a lengthy illness at his home in Mayfair, but his wife has confirmed that he has now passed away.

Lady Moss said: “He died as he lived, looking wonderful.

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

Moss was one of the outstanding stars of motorsport and a British sporting hero, and is widely regarded as the greatest driver never to win a world championship.

His record speaks for itself. Moss won a remarkable 212 of his 529 races in a 10-year career between 1951 and 1961.

Moss’ racing career saw him become one of the world’s most recognisable sports figures in the years after the end of the Second World War.

Four times a world championship runner up between the years of 1955 and 1961, he was famous as much for his sportsmanship and belief in British machinery and engineering as he was for being one of the most talented all-around racers to sit behind the wheel of a race car.

He took on the much faster Ferrari cars and won the Monaco Grand Prix in 1961 in his Lotus, and set a new course record in the famous – and frankly incredibly bizarre – Mille Milgia (thousand mile) race around Italy in 1955.

In 1962, he suffered a heavy crash at Goodwood circuit that left him in a coma for a month and partially paralysed for half a year.

Moss became ill in 2016 after developing a chest infection whilst travelling in Singapore. There is no evidence or suggestion that his death has anything to do with the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.