Chris Amon

New Zealander Chris Amon was probably the unluckiest Formula 1 driver the sport has known. During the sixties and seventies he drove for most of the Formula 1 teams including for a while his own. Although he regularly started from the front row and managed a handful of second and third place finishes, he never managed a Formula 1 Grand Prix win in 96 attempts.

His undoubted speed and talent were demonstrated with Tasman Championship, Can-Am and sports car successes, but his Formula 1 career was blighted by his incredible knack of being in the right team at exactly the wrong time. He also occasionaly managed to simply be in the wrong team.

Consider Amon's 1966 season.

He continued to drive for the McLaren Can-Am team with the promise of a Formula 1 drive alongside Bruce McLaren as they were due to expand the Formula 1 effort to two cars. Unfortunately for Amon, engine supply problems prevented this. Things seemed to move his way when Richie Ginther left the Cooper team and Amon secured the drive beginning with the French GP. However, in one of those quirks of fate that followed Amon during the whole of his Formula 1 career, John Surtees chose this point in time to fall out with Ferrari. Amon found himself out of work after just the French race as Big John slid into the Cooper seat.

Amon managed one more Formula 1 drive that year when he scrounged a Brabham BT11 with an elderly 2 litre BRM engine for the Italian GP. He failed to qualify.

Luckily, Amon had a more normal run in other forms of motor racing. For the 1966 Le Mans 24 hour event he drove a Ford GT40 with Bruce McLaren. This gave him his biggest win up to that point in his career when they led the famous Ford 1-2-3 finish. This resulted in the call to Ferrari and a Formula 1 drive for 1967.

1967

His 1967 season began in typical Amon fashion. He crashed his road car on the way to the non-championship race at Brands Hatch and had to withdraw.

Moving on to Monaco, his Ferrari team mate Lorenzo Bandini died when he crashed and his car caught fire. Mike Parkes, replacing Bandini, broke his legs in a crash at Spa and Ludovico Scarfiotti, also on the Ferrari driver list, decided to retire. This left Amon as Ferrari's only Formula1 driver for the balance of the season. In spite of all of this trauma he managed three third places from a total of six points scoring finishes.

The Amon Luck Factor

A couple of typical examples almost move me to tears even now, 40 years after the fact!

The 1969 Spanish Grand Prix is mainly remembered because of the infamous colapsing rear wings on both works Lotus cars. The high rear wing on Graham Hill's Lotus collapsed as he crested a rise and the car turned sharp left and whacked the wall. Realising that the same fate might occur to team mate Jochen Rindt, Hill ran back down the trackside hoping to slow Rindt before he came over the same rise. Unfortunately, Rindt got there first. His wing did exactly as Hill's had, followed by his Lotus also turning sharp left, hitting the wall and parking the remains of itself against Hill's wreck. Luckily these high speed accidents caused only a broken nose for Rindt.

The result of this accident left Amon in the lead in his Ferrari. The car remained in one piece long enough for Amon to stretch his lead over Jackie Stewart to around 40 seconds while everyone held their breath hoping that at long last he seemed certain to get his first win.

The Ferrari then returned to form when it's V12 engine exploded once again.

As if that wasn't bad enough, here comes the choker.

For the following year, 1970, Ferrari produced a flat-12 version of their Grand Prix engine. The cylinder heads and valve gear were the same components that had been used on the V12 but the cylinder blocks and crankcase were new. Amon's first drive in this version had him singing it's praises as it was 15kph faster than the V12 had been. The fact that after a few laps it snapped it's cranshaft and blew itself apart was a bit of a bummer, but it seemed to have cured the Achilles heal of the V12. That engine had never managed to scavenge it's oil efficiently, which resulted in high oil temperatures usually followed by explosions. The flat-12 seemed able to keep it's oil at more normal temperatures.

Even though the flat-12 engined car seemed to show promise, Amon could see yet another season of frustration in front of him. Looking enviously at the Cosworth DFV's powering Jackie Stewart and Jochen Rindt, he told Enzo he had had enough. That was probably one of the worst decisions he ever made. He joined Jo Siffert at March whilst the Ferrari 312B in the hands of Jackie Ickx and Clay Regazzoni scored 4 wins and 4 second places leaving Ickx second in the championship and Regazzoni third.

Amon actually managed six point scoring finishes including two second places, eventually finishing eighth in the championship. He also won the pre-season International Trophy Formula 1 race at Silverstone, proving that he new how to win Formula 1 races, just not World Championship Formula 1 races.

1970's

After falling out with Max Mosley and Robin Herd at March, Amon moved to the fledgling Matra team for 1971. He managed 4 points scoring positions ending the season with 9 points. He scored another non-championship win in the Argentine race early in the year.

Continuing with Matra for 1972 he raised his season total to 12 points.

Matra pulled out of Formula 1 at the end of 1972 leaving Amon searching for a drive again. He eventually ended up with Tecno for 1973.

1972 had not been a good first year in Formula 1 for Tecno in spite of their success in various other single seater classes. A driver of Amon's standing was obviously hoped to help improve things for 1973. Unfortunately they did not get off to a very good start, failing to have a car ready until the fifth race of the season at Spa in Belgium. Amon repaid them with a single point for sixth place, but it turned out to be his and their only point of the season. This in spite of the fact that Amon had persuaded Tecno to commission Gordon Fowel to design a replacement for the Alan McCall designed chassis. Unfortunately it proved to be just as bad.

Ken Tyrell offered Amon a drive in the final two races of the season but a non-scoring finish in Canada was followed by a typical Amon scenario in the United States. Francois Cevert, number two to Jackie Stewart in the Tyrell team, tragically died in a qualifying accident resulting in Tyrell withdrawing their drivers, including Amon, from the event.

Amon Formula 1 Team

For 1974, Amon decided to run his own team. It perhaps seemed rather strange after his experiences at Tecno, but he hired Gordon Fowel to design what became the F101. It contained a number of interesting details including a central fuel tank resulting in a rather forward driving position, and titanium torsion bar suspension but it proved to be structuraly weak and poor handling. It was not ready race until the fourth event of the season, the Spanish GP. Unfortunately, brake problems brought it's debut to an early conclusion.

The team missed the Belgian Grand Prix and returned, after a lot of work, at Monaco. Amon qualified the car at the back of the grid but further mechanical problems prevented it from starting the race.

Further problems with the car and Amon's health kept them out of the next six events. They next appeared at Monza for the Italian Grand Prix but failed to qualify. That unfortunately brought down the curtain on Chris Amon's Formula 1 team. He competed in the last two events of the season with the fading BRM team, retiring on lap 10 in Canada but managing a 9th place finish, although two laps down, at Watkins Glen for the USA Grand Prix.

 

 

1975

Amon's Formula 1 career seemed over at the end of 1974. He probably regreted turning down the chance to join Brabham early in '74, but he returned late in the '75 season for the Austrian and Italian GP's driving the Ensign for Mo Nunn. It must have felt a refreshing change as he brought the car home in 12th place in both events. So refreshing that he signed up for the 1976 season.

1976

Early in the 1976 season, Amon's career seemd to take a turn for the better. They missed the Brazilian GP but finished 14th in South Africa, 8th in the USA West GP, 5th in Spain and started from 8th on the grid in Belgium. Unfortunately the car lost a wheel and he was lucky to get out of the resulting crash without harm. In Sweden he qualified in an amazing 3rd and ran 3rd in the race behind the two Tyrells Unfortunately, suspension failure resulted in another lucky escape from a big accident. He decided to give the French GP a miss, returning for the British event where he was running in an excellent fourth place until a water leak caused his retirement.

Niki Lauda's infamous fiery crash happened at the German GP that year amd made a huge impact on Amon. He decided not to start the race and was subsequently fired by Mo Nunn. He anounced his retirement and returned to his New Zealand roots.

He was persuaded back into the cockpit for Wolf for two races at the end of the season. Qualifying in Canada was going well when he was involved in yet another big accident with another car. Again he was lucky to walk away unhurt but did not start either this or the subsequent US GP.

This effectively brought an end to Amon's racing career.

Results Round Up

Although Chris Amon never managed a Grand Prix win from his 96 starts he did start from pole position five times and made the podium 11 times. He also ran in first position in seven GP's for total of over 180 laps.

Away from Formula 1 he was successful in the Tasman Championship, finishing second behind Jim Clark in 1968 with two wins, two seconds and two fourth places.

Perhaps his best win was in the 1966 Le Mans event sharing a Ford GT40 with Bruce McLaren, although it was a controversial win.

Ford had produced their iconic GT40 with the intention of beating Ferrari at Le Mans but so far, reliability had been a problem. However, by 1966, using a 7 litre power unit, they seemed to have their cars sorted. They sent 8 GT40's handled by Shelby, Alan Mann and Holman and Moody confident of success after winning the Daytona 24 Hours and the Sebring 12 Hours earlier in the season with Ken Miles driving on both occasions. Ferrari sent 2 works P3's with a third entered by N.A.R.T. and 4 P2's in private hands.

None of the Ferraris lasted the distance leaving the Fords to finish first, second and third with the first two, driven by Ken Miles with Denny Hulme leading Chris Amon and Bruce McLaren, on the same lap. Ronnie Bucknum and Dick Hutcherson were third a few laps down. The folks at Ford decided to arrange for the three cars to cross the line in a photo finish in 1-2-3 order which the drivers duly managed. The Miles/Hulme car crossed the line a few yards ahead of Amon/McLaren with the Bucknum/Hutcherson car in the picture just behind.

Eveyone at Ford, including Ken Miles, assumed the finishing order to be in the order they crossed the line, thus rewarding Miles for his work developing the car with the hat rick of wins. Unfortunately the controversy came about when the officials pointed out that the Amon/McLaren car had started further down the grid so had travelled around 10 yards further than the Miles/Hulme car. The win therefor went to Amon/McLaren with Miles/Hulme second and Bucknum/Hutcherson third.