1,000 Greatest Drivers: Chris Amon
Unlucky in F1, lucky everywhere else.
I don’t have anything personal to write tonight. I was curious how many columns I had written because it was a while since I’d checked. I knew it was more than 200 but fewer than 300, but I didn’t remember the precise number. On February 19, I looked it up and discovered that it was exactly 219. Okay, that was funny, and that’s convinced me to try to push on and release one each day for the rest of the month at least, so the number of complete articles matches the date. I didn’t quite get this done on February 20. I originally had Amon scheduled for January 6, but I didn’t have the top 200 list done by then. After attempting to start this on a previous day when I hadn’t published anything, I slotted him in here because the driver I had for February 20 was Gabriel Casagrande, who is still a very relevant Brazilian stock car star. Since I want to focus on drivers whose careers are complete or nearly complete, so I don’t have to rewrite any articles later, I decided to do Amon today, and it makes sense to do him right after Jean Behra, since they were probably the two best non-winners ever. I still think I rate Behra over Amon, but it’s definitely close. As for the third driver who routinely makes these “best non-winner” lists, Nick Heidfeld, I did him already. I was going to do E- for 1967 because Amon didn’t lead any laps that year (while all the races he should have won came in later years), but I bumped it up because not only did he win two major sports car races, including the 24 Hours of Daytona, he was thrust into the team leader role at the age of 23 after his teammate Lorenzo Bandini died, and he didn’t even have a teammate for most of the season, but still posted his best career points finish.
CHRIS AMON…………..NEW ZEALAND
Born: July 20, 1943
Died: August 3, 2016
Best year: 1969
Best drive: 1972 French Grand Prix at Circuit de Charade
Frequently cited as the best F1 non-winner, Amon’s five poles and 183 laps led lead all non-winners. The son of a sheep farmer, Amon learned to drive around the family farm at age six before he began racing nationally in 1962, where he was quickly spotted by car owner and ex-driver Reg Parnell. After two full seasons with Parnell’s team in 1963 and 1964, Amon lost his ride to Richard Attwood. This prompted Amon’s countryman Bruce McLaren to sign Amon to a sports car deal, which eventually resulted in McLaren and Amon winning the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans. Their Shelby American teammates Ken Miles and Denny Hulme had won on track before Miles was ordered to slow for a staged photo finish, which handed McLaren and Amon the win while infuriating Miles. Nonetheless, this jump-started Amon’s career.
After Ford’s sports car operation trounced Ferrari’s in 1966, Ferrari got its revenge by signing Amon to a dual F1/sports car deal. Amon immediately won the 1967 24 Hours of Daytona with Lorenzo Bandini. However, after Bandini was killed at Monaco, and Bandini’s replacement, Mike Parkes, suffered a career-ending injury at Spa, Ferrari only entered Amon for most of 1967. Nonetheless, he finished a career-best fifth in points. In 1968, Amon narrowly lost the Tasman Series title to Jim Clark, where the best of F1 battled the best of Oceania. In F1, Amon won a series-high 3 poles, but numerous mechanical failures (including fuel pump and transmission failures while leading at Jarama and Mont-Tremblant, respectively) relegated him to 10th in points.
In 1969, Amon won the Tasman Series and four out of seven races against defending and impending World Champions Graham Hill and Jochen Rindt. However, he left Ferrari mid-season over reliability issues. He drove for March in 1970 and Matra in 1971 and 1972, earning non-championship wins with both teams. His last great run came in the 1972 French Grand Prix, where he won the pole, led 19 laps, and subsequently gained two seconds a lap on eventual winner Jackie Stewart after pitting for a puncture to finish third. Afterward, he only competed part-time before abruptly retiring after Niki Lauda’s near-fatal crash at the Nürburgring. He made his final start in Can-Am in 1977. Amon’s replacement, Gilles Villeneuve, so impressed him that he recommended Villeneuve to Ferrari.
While I’m unsure whether he’s the best non-winner, I certainly get Amon’s hype. He frequently beat World Champions in the Tasman Series, partially because he had more experience on his local tracks. His F1 career was definitely unlucky, but Amon himself disagreed because he never suffered more than broken ribs while many of his contemporaries died. Additionally, the egregious Le Mans win partially compensates for his bad luck. I admittedly think people overhype him, considering some people argue he should’ve been a World Champion, which I find dubious. Admittedly, he outranks many champions in my model, which is particularly impressive when considering that he drove for more teams than any other F1 driver.
Open wheel model: #92 of 931 (.189)
Teammate head-to-heads: 26-11 (0-1 vs. Richard Attwood, 5-2 vs. Derek Bell, 3-1 vs. Jean-Pierre Beltoise, 1-0 vs. Warwick Brown, 1-0 vs. Masten Gregory, 3-1 vs. Mike Hailwood, 4-3 vs. Jacky Ickx, 1-1 vs. Tony Maggs, 1-0 vs. Mike Parkes, 1-0 vs. Tim Parnell, 0-1 vs. Jochen Rindt, 2-0 vs. Ludovico Scarfiotti, 2-0 vs. Jo Siffert, 0-1 vs. Jackie Stewart, 1-0 vs. Maurice Trintignant, 1-0 vs. Roelof Wunderink)
Year-by-year: 1963: C-, 1966: C+, 1967: E, 1968: E, 1969: E, 1970: E-, 1971: C+, 1972: C+, 1973: C-