Race and classic pictures

Happy birthday, Sir Stirling!

Here's wishing Sir Stirling Moss a very happy 87th birthday! One of the all-time great British motor sports legends, commonly described as "the greatest driver never to win the World Championship", Sir Stirling was born on this day in London. To mark the occasion, here's a shot of the eternally young-at-heart Sir Stirling from 2013, back where he belongs - behind the wheel of a vintage racing car, taking part in the Goodwood Festival Of Speed.

Sir Stirling's first Formula One outing was in the Swiss Grand Prix in 1951, and he continued to participate right up until the 1961 United States Grand Prix. In total he made 66 starts for teams including Mercedes-Benz, Maserati, Vanwall, Rob Walker Cooper, Lotus and HWM. He was runner-up in the drivers championship for four years in a row from 1955 until 1958, and was finished in third place in 1959, 1960 and 1961.

And just in case you thought we'd forgotten, today is also the birthday of another British Formula One icon Damon Hill, who was born in London today in 1960 making him 56 years old. The 1996 world champion raced for Brabham, Williams, Arrows and Jordan between 1992 and 1999, making 115 starts in total. In 2006 he became president of the British Racing Drivers' Club, and more recently he's been a regular contributor to Sky Sports F1's coverage.

He might be a little greyer these days, but those intense eyes haven't changed at all - as this photo from 1995 shows!

And if we're being really thorough on the birthday front, then it's also many happy returns of the day to two of the current generation of rising stars, Williams development driver Alex Lynn who is 23 today, and Manor's Esteban Ocon who turns 20.

Andrew Lewin

Andrew first became a fan of Formula 1 during the time when Michael Schumacher and Damon Hill were stepping into the limelight after the era of Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell and Aryton Senna. He's been addicted ever since, and has been writing about the sport now for nearly a quarter of a century for a number of online news sites. He's also written professionally about GP2 (now Formula 2), GP3, IndyCar, World Rally Championship, MotoGP and NASCAR. In his other professional life, Andrew is a freelance writer, social media consultant, web developer/programmer, and digital specialist in the fields of accessibility, usability, IA, online communities and public sector procurement. He worked for many years in magazine production at Bauer Media, and for over a decade he was part of the digital media team at the UK government's communications department. Born and raised in Essex, Andrew currently lives and works in south-west London.