Chris Amon

Born in Bulls, New Zealand, Amon was the only child of wealthy sheep-owners and learned to drive at the age of six, taught by a farm worker on the family property. He attended Whanganui Collegiate School and progressed from hillclimbing to national motor racing competition by 1962, initially driving an Austin A40 Special and later a 1.5-litre Cooper. His performances in the New Zealand winter series attracted the attention of English racing driver Reg Parnell, who invited Amon to England to race for his team after a promising test at Goodwood.

Amon made his Formula One debut with Reg Parnell Racing at the 1963 Monaco Grand Prix, where he was immediately hit by bad luck when teammate Maurice Trintignant took over his car after his own developed a misfire. The season continued in similar fashion, with mechanical failures and an accident in practice at Monza leaving him with three broken ribs. Despite the setbacks, Parnell promoted him to team leader for 1964, recognising his raw ability.

His breakthrough opportunity came through sports car racing. In 1966 he partnered Bruce McLaren in a Ford GT40 Mark II at Le Mans, spearheading Ford's famous formation finish — one of the most iconic moments in endurance racing history. The result brought him to the attention of Enzo Ferrari, who signed Amon to race for Scuderia Ferrari in 1967.

Amon's first season at Ferrari, 1967, was the most successful of his career. He scored his debut podium at Monaco, won the 24 Hours of Daytona and the 1000 km Monza alongside Lorenzo Bandini in the Ferrari 330-P4, and finished fifth in the World Drivers' Championship — a career best. The Ferrari sportscar season concluded with a second place at the BOAC 500, partnering Jackie Stewart, which clinched the manufacturers' world championship for Ferrari by a single point over Porsche.

The 1968 season saw Amon begin his pattern of near-misses in Formula One. He achieved pole positions at the Spanish, Belgian, and Dutch Grands Prix but mechanical failures prevented any wins. He twice appeared on the verge of victory — in Britain, where he duelled to the line with Jo Siffert, and in Canada, where a transmission failure with seventeen laps remaining ended a dominant display. Away from Formula One, he won the 1968 New Zealand Grand Prix in the Tasman Series.

In 1969, Amon won the Tasman Series outright, defeating Jochen Rindt and Graham Hill across the seven-race campaign. In Formula One, despite dominating the Spanish Grand Prix until an engine failure forty seconds ahead of Jackie Stewart's Matra with twenty laps remaining, Amon managed only a single third place at the Dutch Grand Prix. The unreliability of Ferrari's V-12 engine and the dominance of Cosworth DFV-powered machinery convinced him to seek a change.

At March in 1970, Amon converted strong qualifying performances into several podium finishes but could not translate them into wins. He set a lap record at Spa-Francorchamps at over 152 miles per hour — a record that still stood as of 2016, as the race marked the last use of the full-length circuit. He won the non-championship Silverstone International Trophy that year.

With Matra in 1971, he secured another non-championship victory at the Argentine Grand Prix and scored a pole position at the Italian Grand Prix, where he was leading before a detached visor on his helmet forced him to slow, surrendering the lead. In 1972, at the French Grand Prix, he took pole and was leading before a puncture dropped him to third — his only podium that season. His time with the struggling Tecno team in 1973 proved a miserable experience he later described as feeling "like ten seasons." Occasional drives for Tyrrell rounded out the year.

Amon founded Chris Amon Racing in 1966 as a private entry and revived it for 1974, fielding the AF101 — a car of unconventional design but structural fragility. The project failed to yield results and Amon drove the last two races of 1974 for the ailing BRM team. He made further appearances with Ensign in 1975, showing brief flashes of his old pace at Monza.

In 1976 with Ensign, he qualified third for the Swedish Grand Prix and was running near the podium before suspension failure threw him from the track. His final race came at the German Grand Prix, where witnessing the severity of Niki Lauda's crash led him to announce his retirement. He later explained: "I'd seen too many people fried in racing cars at that stage. When you've driven past Bandini, Schlesser, Courage and Williamson, another shunt like that was simply too much."

After retiring, Amon returned to New Zealand to farm in the Manawatū District and later lived in Taupō. He consulted for Toyota New Zealand and became well known through appearances on the TV motoring series Motor Show. He was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1993 and inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame in 1995.

Amon died at Rotorua Hospital on 3 August 2016, aged 73, of cancer. He is survived by his wife Tish and their three children. Former Ferrari Technical Director Mauro Forghieri called him "by far the best test driver I have ever worked with — he had all the qualities to be a World Champion but bad luck just wouldn't let him be." The Toyota Racing Series driver's championship trophy bears his name, as does the Manfeild Autocourse in Feilding. Amon remains the only driver from New Zealand and Oceania to have raced for Scuderia Ferrari in Formula One.