851.5 km of leadership work, without reward (in memory of Chris Amon)
The New Zealander Chris Amon is at the top of one statistic, because with 851.5 leading kilometers, he could have driven almost 3 start-finish victories today, but he remains the unlucky one of motorsport and is the undisputed number 1 in the leaderboard with these leading kilometers, plus the five pole positions, without a victory.
In 96 Grand Prix starts between 1963 and 1976, he scored 83 world championship points, started from the front five times, set three fastest race laps, but "only" three second places remained (1968 on Ferrari, GP England narrowly beaten by Jo Siffert and 1970 twice on March, GP Belgium and France).
Over the years, he drove for various teams and in a wide variety of cars: Lola MK4, Lotus 24 and 25, Cooper T81, Ferrari 312 (67, 68 and 69), March 701, Matra MS120 (B, C and D), Tecno PA123B, Tyrrell 005, Amon AF101, BRM P201, Ensign N174, 175 and 176.
However, he usually joined the team at completely the wrong time and was never able to pick the laurels he deserved. He was only able to record one GP victory, but he was also unlucky, as the 1971 Argentinian GP did not count towards the World Championship that year of all years.
His own design, the Amon AF101 , was another flop in his history ( see report on Zwischengas)
He started a total of eight times at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, with seven retirements, but at least one overall victory. Together with Bruce McLaren, he won in 1966 in the Ford GT40 for the Shelby American Incorporation Team.
Things went much better with the sports cars anyway, for example he won the 1967 24 Hours of Daytona and the 1000 km race at Monza with Ferrari.
Chris Amon, with the tapered red and blue stripes on his white helmet, will always be remembered for his constant bad luck.
The New Zealander was born in Bulle on July 20, 1943 and died in Rotorua on August 3, 2016.
Chris Amon is and will probably always be the best racing driver who never won an F1 World Championship race. What did Mario Andretti aptly say about Chris Amon's bad luck: "Bad luck? If Chris Amon had become a funeral director, people would have stopped dying."
