Obituary - Chris Amon, Ferrari F1 driver

Died: August 3, 2016

CHRIS Amon, who has died of cancer aged 73, was often described as the unluckiest Formula One driver of all time, or the most talented racer never to have won a Grand Prix. He, however, felt he was one of the lucky ones since he went on to live a full life as a farmer in his native New Zealand whereas many of his friends and fellow drivers died young when safety measures were primitive and the sport was highly-lethal. During his era, roughly half of racing drivers died.

After arriving in Europe when he was 19, he went wheel-to-wheel with the greats of the day - our own Jim Clark, Graham Hill, John Surtees and a boy from Dumbarton now known as Sir Jackie Stewart. Despite never taking an F1 winner's laurel, Chris Amon had the distinction of holding what at the time, and for most of F1 history, has been the most-coveted motorsports job in the world - Number One team driver for the mighty Ferrari. He was also the youngest F1 driver of his time and he raced for more teams than anyone else - 13 - in a total of 96 Grands Prix.

He stood on the F1 podium 11 times (three second places and eight thirds) and he was no slouch in the big sports cars of the day. With his fellow Kiwi Bruce McLaren, he won the 1966 Le Mans 24 Hours in a Ford GT 40 Mk 11. He also won several F1 races which did not count for the championship, including the 1970 International Trophy at Silverstone in a March-Ford, beating Jackie Stewart, in a similar car, into second place. And he won the non-championship 1971 Argentine Grand Prix, this time in a Matra.

Chris Amon, in a Ferrari, also won the Tasman F1 Championship in 1969, a series of eight races in Australia and New Zealand, which Jim Clark had won in a Lotus in 1965 and Jackie Stewart in a BRM in '66. In the days when drivers accepted potential death as part of the job, Chris Amon and Jackie Stewart became good friends. Together, they drove a Ferrari P4 sports car at the BAOC 1,000 km endurance race at Brands Hatch in 1967, helping Ferrari to win the year's overall title.

"Chris was as fast as anyone around at the time," Sir Jackie told The Herald. "In a way, he may have been in the wrong team at the wrong time. He was potentially not only a Grand Prix winner but even a world champion. Plus he was a really, really nice man. He lived close to me in Switzerland (around Begnins above Lake Geneva) for many years and we visited him on his family farm in New Zealand after he retired."

Christopher Arthur Amon was born in Bulls, a sheep and cattle town near Palmerston on New Zealand's North Island, whose motto is "New Zealand gets its milk from Bulls". His dad Ngaio and mum Betty farmed 1,200 acres and young Chris first learned to drive a tractor - at grossly high speeds, according to his dad - and later his dad's 1937 Ford pick-up truck. He went to Huntley Preparatory School in Marton, near Palmerston, and then Wanganui Collegiate School, where he shone in track and field, rugby and cricket.

But his first love was driving fast, starting in his first car, like so many great drivers of his era an Austin A40. It was after his dad helped buy him an ageing Maserati 250F that he came to the notice of visiting racing drivers including the great Stirling Moss.

On Moss's recommendation, English racing team manager Reg Parnell invited the 19-year-old Amon to his HQ at Hounslow, West London, to drive a Lola-Climax during the 1963 F1 season. Amon had two seventh-place finishes in the F1 World Drivers Championship that year, attracting the attention of Lotus-BRM, for whom he raced for two years, his best finish a fifth place at Zandvoort.

Despite the fact that he had never won, Ferrari decided in 1967 that he was the man for them. He started out as their Number 4 driver but his friend Lorenzo Bandini died at the Monaco Grand Prix. The English driver Mike Parkes broke both legs in a shunt at Spa and the other Ferrari racer Ludovico Scarfiotti made the mistake of falling out with the F1 team. They made Scarfiotti an offer he could not refuse and Chris Amon found himself the top man.

In 1968, Chris Amon was the favourite to win the world drivers' championship in his Ferrari 312, one of the most beautiful F1 cars ever built but somewhat lacking in reliability. He started on pole four times but was forced to retire in seven of the season's races. 1969 was even worse, when he suffered six mechanical failures and was on the podium only once in the year in which Jackie Stewart took the title in a Matra. After a spell with the new March team, Amon joined Matra and looked certain to win the French Grand Prix at Clermont-Ferrand before a puncture left him in third place. Even so, his fellow drivers said he had driven one of the best races they had ever seen.

"I started on pole and managed to get away in front, albeit under a lot of pressure from Denny Hulme (McLaren) and Jackie (Tyrell). Then Denny dropped back and I had a reasonable cushion back to Jackie. I thought I could afford to ease back and I got a bloody puncture. There were a lot of loose stones all over the track, you couldn't pick your way through them. It was a comedy pit stop.

"The wheel jammed and I was in the pits for a minute and a half or so. From that point, I just went for it. I managed to pass Francois Cevert (Tyrrell) and Ronnie Peterson (March) on the same lap, which I was quite pleased about. With one lap to go I was eight or so seconds behind Emerson Fittipaldi (Lotus) and I ended up four seconds behind in third. One more lap and I'd have got past him. I was 30 seconds behind Jackie at the end - I'd taken a minute or so out of him, though he might have backed off."

Speaking of Amon's bad luck, his dear friend and fellow driver Mario Andretti said: "If Chris became an undertaker, people would stop dying."

Amon went on to drive Tecnos, Tyrrells, BRMs and his self-built car for Chris Amon Racing before retiring in 1976 and going back to the family farm in New Zealand, where Jackie Stewart was a regular visitor.

Speaking of his "bad luck," Amon told Motor Sport magazine in 2008. "I'm luckier than Jimmy (Clark) and Jochen (Rindt) and Bruce (McLaren) and Piers (Courage), luckier than my team-mates Lorenzo (Bandini), Ludovico (Scarfiotti), Jo (Siffert) and Francois (Cevert). I'm actually bloody lucky to be here."

Chris Amon died in hospital in Rotorua, New Zealand. He is survived by his second wife Tish (née Wotherspoon), his daughter Georgie and his twin sons James and Alex.

PHIL DAVISON