19 July 1969

19/07/2009

It was a union that could have resulted in world championships but, in Formula 1, it mainly brought frustration.

Chris Amon drove a Ferrari in Formula 1 for the last time at Silverstone 40 years ago. Editor Balfe had no way of knowing at the time that the autograph he received from the hand of his Kiwi hero would come on a weekend that marked the end of one of motor racing's great 'what might have been?' partnerships. It was possibly the only autograph Amon ever signed with an ice-cream melting in his lap after the fumbling recipient lost control of his cone after spotting the New Zealander and his team-mate for the day - Pedro Rodriguez - sitting in a road car behind the pits.

Amon drove for Ferrari in 27 Grands Prix in the late 1960s. He started from the front row of the grid 7 times, led 601.4 kilometres, and scored 34 points including 6 podiums. In Amon's first Grand Prix for Ferrari, at Monaco in 1967 (Denny Hulme's debut win) his team mate Lorenzo Bandini was killed - thereafter the Kiwi was No.1 for the rest of his time at Maranello. His final Grand Prix for the 'Prancing Horse' took place at Silverstone 40 years ago but neither party knew it at the time.

It all started so well - after Bandini was killed, Amon rose to the challenge and scored points in all but two races to finish fourth in the 1967 world championship. In 1968, had points been awarded for qualifying positions, he would have won the title with a race to spare but finished with little in the way of hard results although he managed to boost his income after he discovered the deal his new team mate, Jacky Ickx, had agreed - "When I found out he was on a retainer of $30,000 I was livid. I stewed on it for days, trying to figure out how I was going to confront 'the Old Man'. He (Enzo Ferrari) was always very approachable and available so one day I got up a head of steam and went in and asked why Ickx was on a retainer of 30 grand when I was only getting a share of the purse. He looked at me and said 'But you never asked.' So I did right then, and he agreed on the spot. It was the quickest 30 grand I ever made."

After the frustrations of 1968, Amon hoped to have a Ferrari that combined the speed of '68 car with the reliability of the '67 car. Sadly he got neither. Winning the Tasman Championship proved to be a false hope. "We basically had a sports-car engine for the first Grand Prix of the 1969 season, at Kyalami. We used to rev it to 11-and-a-bit. Ferrari had decided that the Cosworth had more torque than we did, so they'd rev it less and fatten up the torque curve, but the thing was just bloody hopeless. When I got back to Italy I had a meeting with the Old Man and told him we had to rev the thing more, not bloody less, and I asked him for an engine for Barcelona that revved to 12,000 rpm. I said I didn't care if it was cammy."

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