This prototype modern professional racing driver proved the efficacy of Britain’s blueprint for progression within a junior formulae structure. The 500cc bike-engined Formula 3 buzz bombs – with their obvious link to the pre-war appetite for sparse hillclimb/sprint specials – were an austerity product: simple, frugal and (relatively) cheap. The ‘karting’ for a formative Moss, he raced them until long after he had become an established name, for he reckoned rightly that the category’s emphasis on maintaining momentum within its swirling cut and thrust kept him sharp.

They stood him in good stead in another way, too. His bespoke Kieft of 1951-52 was in the vanguard of variable suspension set-ups for differing circuits. A stable understeerer, it enabled him to brake later and carry more speed, in the manner of the Formula 1 of some 10 years hence. Only following Fangio taught him more.

Formula 2, in contrast, was not a British construct, but it allowed its constructors/teams with more moxie than money – Connaught, Cooper and HWM, etc – to visit the Continental spiritual home of motor racing, as well as tackle the undulating, constant-radius perimeter roads of its local bomber base tracks: trickier than they looked and handily more forgiving of mistakes, the latter were another British blueprint for the sport’s future look; and another long-term benefit for Moss.