Christopher Arthur Amon

Amon was born in Bulls, New Zealand, and attended Whanganui Collegiate School. The only child of wealthy sheep-owners Ngaio and Betty Amon, he learned to drive at the age of six, taught by a farm worker on the family farm. After leaving school, he persuaded his father to buy him an Austin A40 Special, which he entered in local races and hillclimbs. He progressed to a 1.5-litre Cooper and then an old 2.5-litre Maserati 250F, but drew wider attention driving the Cooper-Climax T51 that Bruce McLaren had used to win his maiden Grand Prix.

In 1962, Amon entered the Cooper for the New Zealand winter series but was hampered by mechanical problems. Scuderia Veloce entered him in a similar car and, in the rain at Lakeside, he performed well. English racing driver Reg Parnell, who was watching, persuaded Amon to come to England and race for his team. A test at Goodwood confirmed the impression and Amon competed in the Goodwood International Trophy and Aintree 200 pre-season races.

For 1963, Reg Parnell Racing used the year-old Lola Mk4A powered by 1962-specification Climax V8 engines. Amon made his Formula One debut at the Monaco Grand Prix partnered by Maurice Trintignant. His race ended when Trintignant's Climax developed a misfire and Trintignant took over Amon's car. Mechanical failures plagued his races at the Dutch, Mexican, and German Grands Prix. After an accident in practice for the Italian Grand Prix left him with three broken ribs, he missed the Italian and United States rounds. His best results of the year were seventh at the French and British Grands Prix. Amon generally outpaced his teammates, which included his friend Mike Hailwood. He shared an apartment on Ditton Road in London with Peter Revson, Hailwood, and Tony Maggs — a social set that called themselves the Ditton Road Flyers. Reg Parnell died from peritonitis in January 1964 and his son Tim took over the team.

In 1964, Amon scored his first World Championship points with fifth place at the Dutch Grand Prix. The rest of his season was again blighted by mechanical problems. For 1965, BRM engines were offered to the Parnell team only if it ran Richard Attwood as regular driver; Amon was displaced. Bruce McLaren signed Amon for his new McLaren team, but when no second McLaren F1 car materialised, Amon drove only in sports car races. He made a one-off return at the French Grand Prix standing in for an injured Attwood, and also won a Formula Two race in Stuttgart. His last drive before Attwood's return ended in retirement at a non-championship race in Enna.

During 1966, Amon raced for McLaren in Can-Am. He also drove for Cooper at the French Grand Prix after Richie Ginther left for Honda, but was dropped when John Surtees left Ferrari and joined Cooper. Amon made one further F1 appearance in 1966, driving a Brabham BT11 powered by an old 2-litre BRM engine at the Italian Grand Prix under the banner of Chris Amon Racing; he failed to qualify.

The defining moment of 1966 came when Amon partnered Bruce McLaren in a 7-litre Ford GT40 Mark II at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, spearheading Ford's formation finish after Ken Miles was instructed to slow despite leading. Amon subsequently met Enzo Ferrari at Maranello and signed to race for Ferrari in 1967 alongside Lorenzo Bandini, Mike Parkes, and Ludovico Scarfiotti.

In 1967, tragedy struck early when Bandini died following a crash at the Monaco Grand Prix, Parkes broke both legs at the Belgian Grand Prix, and Scarfiotti went into temporary retirement. Amon became Ferrari's sole driver for most of the season. He scored his first podium in his first official Ferrari outing at Monaco and accumulated four third places by season's end, finishing fifth in the Drivers' Championship — the most successful season of his career. In sportscars, Amon began 1967 by winning the Daytona 24 Hours and the 1000 km Monza with Bandini in the 4-litre Ferrari 330-P4. He finished the year partnering Jackie Stewart to second at the BOAC 500, clinching the manufacturers' world championship for Ferrari by one point over Porsche.

In 1968, Amon achieved pole position in three of the first four races of the Formula One season — Spain, Belgium, and the Netherlands — but mechanical problems yielded only a single Championship point from those races. In Britain he finished second to Jo Siffert's Lotus 49B after a duel to the line; in Canada he dominated despite a malfunctioning clutch until his transmission failed seventeen laps from the finish, with Jacky Ickx consoling him at the side of the track. From at least ten promising starts he finished only five races and scored ten Championship points. In the Tasman Series at the start of the year, Amon won the first two rounds including the 1968 New Zealand Grand Prix, before narrowly losing the series to Jim Clark in a Lotus-Ford. Clark's death at Hockenheim in April 1968 affected the entire Formula One community; Amon later reflected: "If this can happen to Jimmy, what chance do the rest of us have? I think we all felt that. It seemed like we'd lost our leader."

In 1969, Amon won the Tasman Series with Scuderia Veloce, beating Jochen Rindt and Graham Hill across the seven-race series, winning both the New Zealand and Australian Grands Prix. Despite six top-six grid positions in Formula One, he achieved only a third place at the Dutch Grand Prix. He dominated the Spanish Grand Prix until an engine breakage on lap 56 with a 40-second lead. Convinced the unreliable Ferrari V12 would not improve, and influenced by the views of Stewart and Rindt that Cosworth DFV power was essential to competitiveness, Amon decided to leave Ferrari.

For 1970, Amon joined the new March Engineering team for the Formula One season. Before the championship began, he won the pre-season Silverstone International Trophy. Once racing started, good qualifying positions failed to convert: his March overheated within fourteen laps at the season opener in South Africa; his DFV expired in ten laps in Spain; and his suspension failed twenty laps from the end in Monaco — the race in which Amon refused to drive unless his entry number was changed from 18, the number under which his former teammate Lorenzo Bandini had died in Monaco, to 28.

A close second place from third on the grid at the 1970 Belgian Grand Prix gave the March team their first points finish; at that race Amon set a fastest lap at over 152 mph, a record that stood as of 2016 as the last race on the full-length Spa-Francorchamps circuit. He duplicated his Belgian result at the French Grand Prix. At Watkins Glen he was — in the opinion of March designer Robin Herd — robbed of a likely victory by a puncture. Disagreements with March co-founders Max Mosley and Robin Herd over unpaid wages and inferior equipment led Amon to leave for Matra.

In 1971 with Matra, Amon again won a pre-season race — the Argentine Grand Prix — and converted a third-place start at the Spanish Grand Prix into a third-place finish. He qualified on pole at the Italian Grand Prix and appeared set to capitalise until the visor on his helmet became detached, forcing him to slow; he finished sixth. He also had a major accident at the Nürburgring that sidelined him for the next race.

In 1972, Amon's fifth and final pole position came at the French Grand Prix; he was leading until a puncture forced a pit stop, but he fought back through the field breaking the lap record to finish third. Matra ended their F1 programme at the end of 1972. With money earned from motorsport, Amon set up a racing engine firm with former BRM engineer Aubrey Woods — Amon Racing Engines — which supplied Formula 2 engines to several drivers before becoming too expensive to run; it was sold to March at a loss.

For 1973, Amon signed with Tecno, who had entered Formula One the previous year with their own flat-twelve engine. Testing of the new PA123-006 chassis designed by Allan McCall was time-consuming. When it finally appeared at the Belgian Grand Prix, Amon qualified fifteenth and finished sixth — the team's only championship point in Formula One. At Monaco, Amon qualified twelfth and ran seventh before retiring with an overheating engine. He refused to drive the McCall-designed Tecno in the Swedish and German Grands Prix, and withdrew after qualifying in Austria. Amon later described the months with the team as feeling "like ten [seasons]." He drove a Tyrrell 005 in the final two races, finishing tenth in Canada — three laps behind Peter Revson's winning McLaren. Amon withdrew from the United States Grand Prix along with Jackie Stewart following the death of teammate François Cevert during qualifying.

For 1974, Amon revived Chris Amon Racing with the AF101, designed by Gordon Fowell and featuring a single central fuel tank, titanium torsion bars, and a forward driving position. The car was not ready until the Spanish Grand Prix, and repeated mechanical failures and illness limited Amon to only a few appearances. He was unable to qualify at the Italian Grand Prix, sealing the fate of both the car and the team. He drove the season's final two races with the BRM team, having earlier turned down a chance to join Brabham.

Amon contested the 1975 Tasman Series in F5000, qualifying on the front row of three New Zealand rounds and winning at Teretonga by 24.2 seconds in January 1975. His qualifying speed in UK F5000 races encouraged Mo Nunn of Ensign to give him a race drive in the Ensign N175. Amon qualified seventh in the non-championship Swiss Grand Prix at Dijon, earning two more Ensign drives.

In 1976, Amon qualified eighteenth and climbed to seventh in the South African Grand Prix. He then qualified tenth and finished fifth in the Spanish Grand Prix. He qualified eighth for the Belgian Grand Prix before losing a wheel nineteen laps from the finish. For the Swedish Grand Prix he started third and appeared set for the podium until suspension failure threw him from the track after 38 laps. At the British Grand Prix he was running fourth when his DFV developed a water leak and his team called him in. At the German Grand Prix, Niki Lauda's crash on the second lap led Amon to refuse to restart the race; Nunn dismissed him from the team. Amon then declared his retirement from the sport, later reflecting: "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."

Walter Wolf persuaded Amon to drive for his Wolf–Williams team for the North American races, but during qualifying for the Canadian Grand Prix Amon was involved in a heavy collision and did not compete in either the Canadian or United States Grands Prix.

Amon turned down a full-time F1 drive for 1977 but attempted a return to Can-Am racing with a Wolf-Dallara WD1. After only one race he quit, saying "I'm just not enjoying this anymore." His place was taken by Gilles Villeneuve, whom Amon would later recommend to Enzo Ferrari.

After retirement from racing, Amon dedicated himself to running the family farm in New Zealand's Manawatū District. In the early 1980s he became known in New Zealand through test-driving vehicles on the TV motoring series Motor Show, and he later consulted for Toyota New Zealand, tuning the 1984 Toyota Corolla and subsequent cars. In 2003, Amon came out of retirement for the Dunlop Targa New Zealand with motorsport commentator Murray Walker as his navigator, completing the week-long Auckland to Wellington tarmac rally in a Toyota Camry Sportivo.

Amon took part in 96 Formula One Grands Prix, achieving five pole positions, leading 183 laps in seven races, reaching the podium 11 times, and scoring 83 Championship points. He won two non-championship Grands Prix — the 1970 BRDC International Trophy at Silverstone and the 1971 Argentine Grand Prix. Former Ferrari Technical Director Mauro Forghieri stated: "He had all the qualities to be a World Champion but bad luck just wouldn't let him be." Mario Andretti once joked that "if he became an undertaker, people would stop dying." Amon was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 1993 Queen's Birthday Honours and inducted into the New Zealand Sports Hall of Fame in 1995. The Toyota Racing Series driver's championship trophy is named after him, as is the Manfeild Autocourse in Feilding, Manawatū. He died on 3 August 2016 in Rotorua Hospital, aged 73, of cancer. He was survived by his wife Tish Wotherspoon, whom he married in 1977, their three children, and their grandchildren.

This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.