Another great is gone. RIP.
Chris with the Matra at Charade in 1972. Very fast... One of my favorite drivers. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Yes superb shot and unfortunate that those little volcanic stones (which can still be found by the side of the roads which composed the full length circuit cost him the win and Marko his eye...fate.
Yes; best driver never to win a F1 GP must be Amon. Best drivers never to win F1 title: Moss, Gurney, Gilles.
Back in his day there were Grand Prix's that were not part of the WDC. Chris won the 1970 Silverstone International Trophey and the 1971 Argentine Grand Prix but they didn't count. Pete
Yes, Pete, there were non-championship F1 races then. I saw one in 1968 at Brands Hatch, and it presented us with a first-time F1 winner. Another Kiwi, named ... Bruce McLaren.
Okay I'm confused David. Are you saying first-time F1 winner because Bruce had never won this particular race before or something else?, as his first F1 win was many years earlier in the 1959 United States Grand Prix at the age of 22. Best Pete
Pete, I was wrong. What I meant to say was it was McLaren's 1st (albeit non-championship) F1 win in a car of his own construction. There are 2 interesting parallels at work here in that Gurney's first F1 (non-championship) win in the Eagle Weslake was at the 1967 Race of Champions. Later that year he won at Spa, and Bruce duplicated that feat as well. The first F1 race I ever saw in person was the '67 British GP at Silverstone. Dan was driving the Eagle and unless I'm mistaken, his co-driver in the second Eagle was ... Bruce McLaren. BUT WAIT, there's more! When Bruce died a week or so before the 1970 Can Am season, Denis Hulme was still badly burned (hands) from an Indy crash, so the grieving McLaren team team turned to an old friend for help. And with that, Dan Gurney promptly won the 1st 2 Can Am races driving for long-time Can Am competitor Team McLaren!
Charade/France 1972 - (© S. Le Bozec). Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Dan's victories in the 1970 Can Am were the perfect swan song for his driving career. Sponsorship conflicts(Castrol v Gulf) forced him out and he was replaced by Peter Gethin.
Chris Amon's career is the perfect example of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. As early as 1965, Bruce McLaren had taken him under his wing and wanted him in his team when he would leave Cooper. McLaren started racing his own cars in 66, but with no second car forthcoming, Chris Amon lost patience with his compatriot and signed for Ferrari. McLaren went on to sign Hulme later, and I don't think the friendship between Amon and Bruce ever recovered after that. As early as 1968, McLaren was winning GPs in F1 (Bruce and Dennis Hulme), and embarked on a total domination in CanAm. Promoted team leader at the Scuderia after Bandini's death, Parkes injury and Scarfiotti's departure, the relatively inexperienced Amon suffered a spate of reliability issues, bad luck, unprepared cars, etc... whilst McLaren was building a reputation in F1. Things would have been so different, had Amon not signed with Ferrari and joined his compatriot in the new team. A title or two may not have been out of the question either at McLaren, with a couple of CanAm championships to boot. Instead, he lost his prime years at the Scuderia, and never recovered from it. His last racing years were truly pathetic. In a nutshell, Chris Amon's career was a tragic missed opportunity.
Very sad. I was lucky enough to see him race the might Ferrari 712 at Riverside, unfortunately DNF...... The sound of that race car was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard. Chris was a TRUE gentleman driver.
I'm so sorry to hear this. I met Cesare Martinengo while working on a story and he sent me this photo he shot in 1967 of Chris and Lorenzo Bandini after they won the Daytona 24 Image Unavailable, Please Login
Kyalami 1971. Chris and the fantastic Matra V12. © Brian Watson Photography. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
BRILLIANT photos!! Check out that opposite lock ... reminds me of Ronnie Peterson in the Lotus 72. Makes me remember when you could actually see speed.
An extraordinary driver and humble man. So very unlucky to have been at Ferrari when their eye was on sport car racing and not developing the F1 car - had it been the other way around he may have had many wins and maybe a WDC. John
I agree. It's the spectacular side of F1 that we have lost over the years. To me that was an ingredient as precious as the noise. Now, unfortunately, we have lost both of them. 2016 F1 cars corner on rails, and in silence ...
