Chris Amon

Chris Amon was a New Zealand racing driver renowned as one of the fastest of his generation and, by sad consensus, the greatest driver never to win a World Championship grand prix. Born in 1943, he arrived in Europe as a teenager and was running in Formula 1 by 1963. Blessed with sublime natural speed and admired by his peers, he seemed destined for victories that, through a relentless run of misfortune, never came.

Across 108 entries and 102 starts he scored 11 podiums, 5 pole positions and 83 points, but never a championship grand prix win. His most competitive years came at Ferrari from 1967 to 1969, where he was often the quickest car on track only to be denied by mechanical failures. He later drove for March, Matra and BRM, and even built and ran his own Amon car in 1974, before retiring in 1976 after spells with Ensign and Wolf.

Amon did taste victory in non-championship and sports car racing, sharing the winning Ford at the 1966 Le Mans 24 Hours, but his Formula 1 luck never turned. After racing he returned to New Zealand to farm and remained a much-loved figure until his death in 2016.

Amon was a precise, sensitive driver with an exceptional feel for a car, qualities that made him a brilliant development tester as well as a front-runner. His career became motorsport's enduring lesson in cruel luck, a talent universally rated among the very best yet defined by the wins that slipped away. Respected and warmly remembered by everyone who raced against him, he remains the benchmark for unfulfilled grand prix potential.