81 Facts About Chris Amon

Christopher Arthur Amon was a New Zealand motor racing driver.

Chris Amon was active in Formula One racing in the 1960s and 1970s, and is widely regarded as one of the best F1 drivers never to win a championship Grand Prix.

Apart from driving, Chris Amon ran his own Formula One team for a short period in 1974.

Away from Formula One, Chris Amon had some success in sports car racing, teaming with co-driver Bruce McLaren to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans race in 1966.

Chris Amon was born in Bulls, New Zealand, and attended Whanganui Collegiate School.

Chris Amon was the only child of wealthy sheep-owners Ngaio and Betty Amon.

Chris Amon learned to drive at the age of six, taught by a farm worker on the family farm.

Chris Amon progressed to a 1.5-litre Cooper and then an old 2.5-litre Maserati 250F, but only began to draw attention when he drove the Cooper-Climax T51 which Bruce McLaren had used to win his maiden Grand Prix.

In 1962 Chris Amon entered the Cooper for the New Zealand winter series, but was hampered by mechanical problems.

One of the spectators there was the English racing driver Reg Parnell who persuaded Chris Amon to come to England and race for his team.

Chris Amon was teamed with the very experienced Maurice Trintignant for the first race of the season at Monaco and his Grand Prix career started with what was to become typical bad luck: Trintignant's Climax developed a misfire, so he took over Chris Amon's car.

At the 1963 Belgian Grand Prix, Chris Amon was partnered by Lucien Bianchi and started ahead of him from 15th position.

Chris Amon continued to experience mechanical problems at the Dutch, Mexican and German Grands Prix; and after an accident in practice for the Italian Grand Prix left him hanging out of his car's cockpit with three broken ribs, he missed both the Italian and United States rounds.

Chris Amon was a member of the Ditton Road Flyers, the social set named after the road in London where Amon shared an apartment with American Peter Revson, Hailwood and Tony Maggs.

Chris Amon failed to qualify for the first F1 race of the season, the Monaco GP, but at the next race, the Dutch GP, he scored his first World Championship points.

At the French GP Chris Amon rejoined Parnell to stand in for an injured Attwood.

Chris Amon competed in a Formula Two race in Stuttgart and won.

Chris Amon returned to Germany for the German GP as second Parnell driver, but mechanical failure again forced an early retirement.

Chris Amon's last drive before Attwood's return, a non-championship race in Enna, Sicily, ended in retirement.

Chris Amon was intended to drive the second McLaren M2B but difficulties with engine supply meant that the team never made the intended expansion to two cars.

Chris Amon drove for Cooper at the French GP and was scheduled to drive for them for the rest of the season, until the more successful John Surtees left Scuderia Ferrari to join Cooper and Chris Amon found himself dropped.

Chris Amon did however, score his biggest success to date when he partnered Bruce McLaren in a 7-litre Ford GT40 Mark II and Ken Miles to Ford's dead-heat "photo-finish" after Miles was instructed to slow down despite leading at the Le Mans 24-hour race, spearheading a formation finish.

Chris Amon subsequently received an invitation to meet Enzo Ferrari at the Ferrari home in Maranello, where he signed to race for Ferrari in 1967 alongside Lorenzo Bandini, Mike Parkes and Ludovico Scarfiotti.

Chris Amon, therefore, became Ferrari's only driver for the rest of the season, until joined by Jonathan Williams for the final race in Mexico.

Chris Amon scored his first podium in his first official outing for the Scuderia in Monaco and at the end of 1967 had achieved four third places finishing fifth in the Drivers' Championship, in what was going to be the most successful season of his career.

Chris Amon finished the year partnering Jackie Stewart to a second place at the BOAC 500, thereby clinching the manufacturer's world championship for Ferrari by one point over Porsche.

In January 1968 Chris Amon had returned home to New Zealand and Australia to compete in the 1968 Tasman Series which was used by many of the top Formula One drivers as a warm up series to the World Championship.

Seventeen laps from the finish his car's transmission failed and a distraught Chris Amon had to be consoled by Jacky Ickx.

Outside F1, Chris Amon was runner-up in the Formula Two race at Zolder, Belgium, testing the Dino 166 F2.

Chris Amon came third in that year's BRDC International Trophy.

Chris Amon began 1969 with success driving the Dino engined 246 Tasmania in the Tasman Series that included winning both the New Zealand and Australian Grands Prix.

Chris Amon finished with four wins, two-thirds and one retirement, but in Formula One his poor luck continued.

The ageing 312 was still quick at the start of the season and after the Lotus 49Bs of Rindt and Graham Hill crashed spectacularly after high wing failure in the opening laps at Barcelona, Chris Amon dominated the Spanish GP until the almost inevitable engine breakage on lap 56,40 seconds ahead of Stewart's Matra.

At Monaco Amon ran second to Stewart for the first 17 laps losing a second a lap to Stewart, but still gaining a second a lap on the third placed G Hill who survived the race of attrition to win.

Chris Amon had no reason to believe it would be any more dependable than the V12, so although the new engine was clearly more powerful, he decided to leave Ferrari for a Cosworth DFV powered team.

Chris Amon was more influenced by views of Jackie Stewart and Jochen Rindt, who believed it was essential to be Ford DFV-powered to be competitive.

Chris Amon won the pre-season Silverstone International Trophy, but once the F1 season began he found himself prevented from converting good qualifying positions into good results.

At that race, Chris Amon set fastest lap at over 152 miles per hour, a lap record which still stands as of 2016, as it was the last race on the full-length Spa-Francorchamps circuit.

Chris Amon duplicated his Belgian result at the 1970 French Grand Prix,.

In 1971, Chris Amon, now driving for the Matra factory team, scored a pre-season victory, this time at the Argentine Grand Prix.

Chris Amon had a major accident at the Nurburgring and it sidelined him for the next race at the Osterreichring.

Chris Amon had to slow to avoid risking a major accident, thereby allowing other drivers to catch and overtake him.

Chris Amon finished the race in sixth place, scoring just one Championship point.

Matra decided to end their participation in Formula One at the end of 1972, so Chris Amon found himself looking to return to March as a driver.

Chris Amon therefore signed for another recently formed F1 team, Tecno.

Yorke rejected the release, and Chris Amon admits he would not have left Ferrari if offered the drive for a season.

At Monaco the car qualified a useful 12th and chassis felt good but Chris Amon was unhappy with the car.

Chris Amon decided to concentrate on the undeveloped Gordon Fowell Goral car.

Chris Amon refused to drive the McCall, Techno in the Swedish or German Gps and withdrew from the Austrian GP after qualifying.

Chris Amon was only able to qualify 23rd, thanks to brake-disc vibration that only became worse with the tyres for the wet race that followed.

That sealed the fate of both the car and Chris Amon Racing, leaving Amon to drive the season's last two races with the faltering BRM team.

Chris Amon contested the 1975 F5000 Tasman series against only local Australasian drivers, although Graham McRae, Warwick Brown and Kevin Bartlett were acknowledged internationally.

Chris Amon had a frustrating series of races unable to pass, South Australian Johnnie Walker, in a superior Lola T332 chassis with Repco-engineered V8.

Chris Amon brushed the edge of the track on repeated laps, got extra grip and passed Walker to take the lead.

Chris Amon had been forced to miss most of the practice session, when Customs seized his car's gearbox.

Chris Amon intended to compete in F5000 in both Europe and the US in 1975 but started in only one round of both series, managing a pole in one Shellsport round in the UK and a 4th place overall at the Long Beach GP in a two heat race.

Chris Amon used different Talon F5000 cars for both races.

Apart from these successes, Chris Amon's racing career seemed to have stalled.

Van Lennep, qualified the car on its debut in the French GP at Paul Ricard and finished 6th in the German GP at Nurburgring, and was faster on both circuits than Patrick Neve or Chris Amon were in 1976.

Chris Amon managed 7th in the non-championship Swiss GP at Dijon chasing James Hunt debuting the disappointing Hesketh 308C and 12th in two GP drives in the Ensign N175 at the Austrian and Italian GPs.

Ironically Chris Amon never raced the N175 again and the high airboxes had been banned by the time N176 ran at Jarama the following year, but the flash of testing and driving genius was enough to give Chris Amon another chance.

Chris Amon then achieved a third-place grid position start for the Swedish GP using a Nicholson rebuilt Cosworth for the first time and in the race looked as if he would join Tyrrell drivers Jody Scheckter and Patrick Depailler on the podium, until suspension failure threw him from the track after 38 laps.

Chris Amon had again been lucky to escape serious injury and decided to miss the next race, the French GP.

Chris Amon returned for the British GP, qualifying in sixth and running fourth in the race when his Ford-Cosworth DFV engine developed a water leak.

Chris Amon refused to restart the race and Nunn fired him from the team.

Chris Amon declared his retirement from the sport and returned to New Zealand.

Chris Amon then did not take part in either the Canadian or United States Grands Prix.

Chris Amon turned down an offer of a full-time F1 drive for 1977, but did attempt a return to Can-Am racing in 1977 with a Wolf-Dallara WD1.

Chris Amon's place was taken by the young and then unknown Canadian Gilles Villeneuve, whom Amon would, later that year, recommend to Enzo Ferrari.

Chris Amon came out of retirement for a one-off appearance in the 2003 Dunlop Targa New Zealand with motorsport commentator Murray Walker as his navigator.

Chris Amon appeared in TV commercials for the company, where much was made of the acclaim he won from Enzo Ferrari.

Chris Amon participated in the 2004 EnergyWise Rally where he won ahead of Brian Cowan.

Chris Amon died in Rotorua Hospital on 3 August 2016, aged 73, of cancer.

Chris Amon was survived by his wife their three children and their grandchildren.

Chris Amon trained Central Districts Stags cricket team, and was revealed to be Brendon Hartley's personal trainer.

Chris Amon remains the only driver from New Zealand and Oceania to have raced for Scuderia Ferrari in Formula One.

In Formula One, Chris Amon took part in 96 Grands Prix, achieving 5 poles, leading 183 laps in 7 races, reaching the podium 11 times and scoring a total of 83 Championship points.

Chris Amon holds the record for the most different makes of car raced by a Formula 1 World Championship driver, with thirteen.

The book makes clear one point on which Chris Amon himself disagrees with most commentators, the issue of his bad luck.

Chris Amon has pointed out on several occasions that he competed for a decade and a half in Formula One and survived some serious accidents, notably in 1976, whilst others, including friends like Bruce McLaren, suffered serious injury and death.

Chris Amon's name has been given to the Toyota Racing Series driver's championship trophy, and the International Scholarship to support drivers who win his trophy to further their careers in single-seater racing.