Bad (Luck) Amon

On paper, New Zealander Chris Amon had a fantastic record in Formula One. In a career spanning from 1963 to 1976, Amon won eight non-championship Formula One races and the Silverstone International Trophy in 1970. He also excelled in sportscar racing, having won the Daytona 24 Hours Race and the Monza 1000km in 1967, the Tasman Cup in 1969, and the much-coveted 24 Heures du Mans in 1966. He took part in 102 Grand Prix races, collected 83 championship points and went on the podium 11 times.

However, there is one thing that is missing from his resume.

A proper Formula One victory.

And this is largely due to his much lamented bad luck and bad timing throughout his career.

It's hard to imagine a person will be foiled by bad luck and bad timing for over a decade. Yet Amon had the talent to elude Lady Luck when she was embracing him. Some may say that it isn't luck that has deserted him. It's the other way around: It's him who deserted luck.

Amon's Formula One career took off in an inauspicious way in 1963, when he was supposed to partner Maurice Trigtinant for the opening race at Monaco. Yet an engine misfire by the French veteran forced Amon to surrender his car to his teammate.

In 1965, the team seemed destined for a better future when it was offered the BRM engines, one of the best at the time. Yet Amon was dropped by the team as per the condition for the use of BRM engines. Fellow Kiwi Bruce McLaren soon snapped him up for his newly-formed McLaren team and promised him a ride in a second car, but that car never materialized. Similar fate awaited him when car owner Tim Parnell also promised to field a third car for him at Silverstone.

1966 started miserably as Amon couldn't secure a regular drive in Formula One. But the Cooper-Maserati team offered him a drive at the French Grand Prix, and planned to race him for the rest of the year. But John Surtees, the World Champion in 1964, suddenly became available after leaving Ferrari due to a major disagreement, and was soon snapped up by Cooper at the expense of Amon. Surtees then promptly won the season-ending race in Mexico. Spurned by Formula One, Amon spent time in sportscar racing and won the 24 Heures du Mans with McLaren.

It was his brilliant form in sportscar racing that caught the eyes of Enzo Ferrari, and he would join the team in 1967. But his Formula One career with Ferrari started in the worst possible way, when his teammate Lorenzo Bandini was killed in a fiery accident in Monaco, in just the second race of the season.

Amon's first real chance of Formula One glory came in Brands Hatch in 1968, when he was all over the back of Jo Siffert's Lotus but just couldn't find a way through, and had to settle for second. Three races later in Canada, Amon built a commanding lead of over a minute, only for his car to break down due to clutch problems with just 17 laps to go. In Spain in 1969, he was literally miles ahead again when his engine blew, costing him another victory.

In early 1970, he decided to leave Ferrari, which was showing signs of a revival, for the newly-formed March team. In 1971, he moved on to the French Matra team. Once again, his infamous bad luck cost him at least a couple of certain victories.

In the Italian Grand Prix in 1971, Amon secured the pole position and was leading the race with less than 10 laps to go. When the dirt collected by his helmet visor blocked his vision, he decided to peel off one of the visor films, a routine practice for the drivers now and then. Yet somehow the entire visor came off, and he had no choice but to slow down, allowing other drivers to go by. In the end, the unheralded Peter Gethin won the race in a photo-finish, where the top five cars separated by 0.6 second, and it was the fastest Formula One race at the time. Amon could only finish sixth, battling the discomfort in his eyes and face the rest of the way.

The French Grand Prix at Clermont-Ferrand in 1972 was another glorious chance for Amon to break his duck. As per usual, he grabbed pole and pulled away from the field. This time though, he was thwarted by a puncture due to the cobblestones on the track. (Promising Austrian driver Helmut Marko even lost an eye when his visor was pierced by one of the pebbles during the race.) Amon had to pit (at that time when pitting for tyres would cost minutes), and when he returned, he charged all the way back to third, breaking the lap record with a huge margin on the way.

In a surprising move, he decided to race his own team in 1974. After struggling mightily for a couple of race, the Brabham team came calling, offering him a seat at one of the top teams at the time. But Amon turned them down, fearing that his departure would upset the morale of his team members. That year, Carlos Reutemann, a driver who many believed to be inferior to Amon, won three races with Brabham.

In his career, Amon has shown time and again he could flat-out beat the big boys driving for the top teams, despite his own car's decidedly lack of pace. Yet if he is not unlucky, he simply had no luck at all.

Talent-wise, Amon is in the class of the very good, if not great, drivers, and his misfortune is acknowledged by the racing fans and drivers alike. Fellow driver Mario Andretti once joked that, "if he became an undertaker, people would stop dying".