Chris Amon
Arthur Christopher " Chris " Amon ( born July 20, 1943 in Bulls) is a former New Zealand racing driver. He started 1963-1976 at 96 Grand Prix races in Formula 1 In addition, he also took part in sports and touring car races and won in 1966 together with his compatriot Bruce McLaren, the 24 - hour race at Le Mans.
- 2.1 Grand Prix Results
- 2.2 Le Mans results
Career
Amon, who was during his Formula 1 career, inter alia, with well-known racing teams like Ferrari, March and Matra under contract, was to his playing days as one of the fastest racers and the most unlucky at the same time. The success He always fails. To date, he is the Formula 1 pilot with the most first launch sites ( 5), without having it ever won a race. In addition, Amon is among the winless pilots with over 850 km of the driver with the most leadership kilometers of Formula 1 history. Often overtook him in a promising position technical defects which threw him back or ended his race. Some journalists dubbed him as " Unlucky ", Formula 1 World Champion Mario Andretti put it in the late 1970s as " bad luck? If Chris Amon would have become an undertaker, people would have ceased to die. "
Formula 1
Amon started for the first time at the 1963 Belgian Grand Prix in a Lola - Climax MK4 for Reg Parnell Racing team to a Formula 1 race. By the end of the 1965 season, he participated in a further 15 Grand Prix for Parnell, but he started eleven times with a Lotus chassis.
1966 Amon drove only a race for Cooper before he stood from 1967 to 1969 with Ferrari under contract. After the fatal accident of Lorenzo Bandini and Ludovico Scarfiotti and the serious injury of Mike Parkes ' expectations and the pressure to succeed the entire team resting on his shoulders. Amon justified his contract with some good results. He was narrowly beaten in the Grand Prix of Great Britain at Brands Hatch in 1968 by the Swiss Joseph Siffert and just stood in the three years five more times on the podium.
In the World Sportscar Championship Amon held partially indemnified and was thus able to retaliate for loss of successes in Formula 1. 1966 triumph he achieved the 24- hour race at Le Mans. With partner Bruce McLaren Amon won the Ford GT 40 and gave the U.S. company from Dearborn 's first win at the Sarthe. 1967, this time for Ferrari, he won both the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 1000 km race at Monza.
, 1970 Amon for March and made his point richest season in Formula 1 Twice he took the checkered flag in second and collected a total of 23 championship points. In 1971, he joined the French National team Matra, with their chassis Jackie Stewart became world champion in 1969. In two seasons he scored there two pole positions and two third places.
In the following years until the completion of his Formula 1 career in 1976, he completed the race for the Tecno team for Tyrrell, BRM, for his own project called Chris Amon Racing and for Ensign. For the North American race of the Formula 1 season 1976 Amon was finally obliged by Walter Wolf and his team reported for Walter Wolf Racing. Amon took in a Williams FW05 on qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix in part, but was seriously injured in an accident during practice and the race had to leave out the next day as well as the following the U.S. Grand Prix. He was replaced by the Australian Warwick Brown.
A total of Amon took part in 96 Grand Prix races. He started five times from the pole position, but did not win a race. He finished second three times and eight times third place and collected a total of 83 world championship points. In 12 other Grand Prix he could not qualify or said from the start,.
Touring car
On July 8, 1973 Chris Amon won with Hans -Joachim Stuck as a partner to BMW CSL and the Grand Prix touring car (6- hour race ) at the Nürburgring. Amon / Stuck won in 6:03:06,5 hours (42 laps = 959.7 km ).