With the Swede Mattias Ekstrom completing a hat trick of Race of Champions titles on the 4th November, beating seven-time F1 World Champion, Michael Schumacher in the final of the 2009 Race of Champions, it may come as no surprise that Stirling won his Race of Champions at Silverstone on the 10th May 1952.

Stirling’s victory in this particular race was one of three victories and a third place at Silverstone, achieved across four different types of car, on the same day. This demonstration of Stirling’s ability to win in virtually any kind of car matches that demonstrated by Ekstrom in the 2009 Race of Champions. Ekstrom put his continuing success at the Race of Champions down to his upbringing: “I was born in the countryside in Sweden and drove lots of different cars as a boy, plus I've also had the pleasure of racing a lot of good touring cars, sports cars and rally cars”.

For Stirling the 1952 Race of Champions was a one off head to head against five other drivers, Prince Bira, of Siam, now Thailand, Tony Graze of Australia, Paul Pietsch of Germany, Emmanuel de Graffenried of Switzerland and Johnny Claes of Belgium. As with the modern day 2009 version, they all drove identical cars, in this case Jaguar XK120’s in left hand drive reflecting the export drive Jaguar were undertaking in the USA at the time.

Each driver drew ballots for a grid position with Stirling coming from behind a slow starting Prince Bira to go onto to win the short 5 lap race of a 3 mile circuit at Silverstone. “I managed to pull out almost 2 seconds a lap over de Graffenried to win quite easily” recalls Stirling, winning his fourth race of the day at an average speed of 78.05mph with a fastest lap of 2 minutes 12 seconds.

Prior to this he had won the Production Sports Car race in a Jaguar C-type, one of three C-types entered with Tony Rolt and Peter Walker at the wheels of the other two Jaguars. By the second lap of this 17 lap race of the same 3 mile Silverstone circuit, he had taken the lead, going on to win by 14 seconds from Reg Parnell driving an Aston Martin DB3.

Stirling’s third Jaguar victory came at the wheel of the portly Mk.VII in the Touring Car Race, a car described by him as a “drawing room on wheels”, which nevertheless handled extremely well. “I won easily taking Woodcote each lap in a huge four wheel drift. I am told that the howling tyres could be heard well before I came into view” recalled Stirling of the large Jaguar.

He could have so easily made it a fourth victory in the Formula 3 race on that day in May had it not been for a nipple that pulled of a brake cable on his Kieft-Norton 500 causing the brakes to stay on. This allowed the rest of the field to pull back the 8 second lead he had built up in very wet and slippery conditions. He was eventually caught and finished third behind Stuart Lewis-Evans and Alan Brown.

Roll forward over 40 years and Ekstrom demonstrated last week, that like Stirling, he had the ability to win in all types of cars to take victory in the 2009 Race of Champions. Perhaps the organiser Fredrik Johnsson should consider a Champions Race of Champions, to think Stirling racing Ekstrom, that would be a true Race of Champions, and just to make it interesting, do it in classic Jaguars!