Sir Jackie Stewart turns 80 on Tuesday and he will celebrate the landmark birthday with a lunch attended by the Queen.
No sportsman before can make that claim. Surely none ever will again.
Stewart's contacts' book reads like Burke's Peerage and there will be no shortage of titled friends in the Louis XIV-style restaurant at the Royal Automobile Club in Pall Mall for the shindig.
But the mechanics who kept him safe during the dangerous racing days that delivered triple world championship titles will be just as cherished guests.
Sir Jackie Stewart will be spending his 80th birthday in royal company on Tuesday
There are, however, many pals who cannot make it. Their faces populate the walls of Stewart's three-floor apartment between Geneva and Lausanne, where the cream-coloured furnishings are immaculate and the dust is caught before it falls.
Not long after Paul, the butler, has cleared the post-prandial coffee from the terrace with its views of Mont Blanc, Stewart says: 'I could have been killed. Pretty much none of my friends are alive. Jimmy Clark, Jochen Rindt, Francois Cevert, I was close to all those especially.
'Mike Spence, Graham Hill in his plane, and much later Jack Brabham, Chris Amon...' The list goes on, and he momentarily turns his gaze to the mountains.
'In the 11-year window in which I drove, 57 friends and colleagues died, often in horrific circumstances. If you raced for five years you were more likely to die than to survive. Those are the statistics. It was brutal. I shall not forget the agony of the widows and the fear in the eyes of wives who wondered if it was their turn next.
'I sometimes feel guilty. Take Mike Spence, my team-mate at BRM (British Racing Motors) the previous year. His right wheel came off during practice at the Indianapolis 500 and hit him on his head. I saw him in hospital. He died and he didn't have a scratch on his body.
'It should have been me in that car but I broke my wrist so I couldn't compete in Indy.'
The racing great sat down with Sportsmail's Jonathan McEvoy to discuss his incredible life
Spence was one of four established drivers to die in as many months in 1968 — Clark, Ludovico Scarfiotti, who drove in blazer and bow tie, and Frenchman Jo Schlesser being the others. The pain inspired Stewart to pursue his safety campaigning with ever more intensity.
It was while inspecting a track — 'for God's sake' — that Stewart learned that Clark, the double world champion, had died at Hockenheim. He was not prepared to accept the news. He phoned from a little restaurant next to the main road that led to Madrid airport. His wife Helen answered the phone. 'Hello,' she said.
'Hello, it's me,' he said.
'We didn't say anything else. There was a long silence. We both knew what it meant. My great friend, my hero, the man we wanted to be godfather to our second son, Mark, was dead. We broke down in tears.'
Stewart and Clark had shared digs in London and the memory of his loss pains Stewart to this day.
I ask him who is the greatest British driver in history. Lewis Hamilton's expanding c.v. of excellence, including five world titles, stakes his claim. But Stewart says unequivocally: 'Jim Clark.'
'Juan Manuel Fangio was the greatest driver of all. Jimmy is next. And then I would say Alain Prost. Ayrton Senna was very fast but Prost barely moved the steering wheel — like Jimmy and me. I learned that from watching Jimmy. With Lewis it is difficult to tell quite how good he is because he is driving such a good car. You would have to see him in a less competitive car. Valtteri Bottas is as quick as Lewis this season. Max Verstappen is the fastest driver at the moment.
'But I thought Lewis's win at Monaco in the last race on one set of tyres for virtually the whole race was terrific.'
This year marks the 50th anniversaries of both Stewart's first British Grand Prix victory and first world championship. The last of his titles came in 1973, secured at Monza. He had intended to retire after his 100th race at Watkins Glen in America two races later.
But in practice his team-mate, family friend and intended successor as Tyrrell's No 1 driver, Cevert, was killed. 'Francois,' says Stewart pointing at the photograph of the Frenchman in the apartment, 'look, amazing eyes.'
