Dear Craig,

When I began writing about racing, in 1971, it was very much at the deep end – the very first race I ever covered was the Spanish Grand Prix at Montjuich Park, and I arrived there knowing literally no one in the paddock.

As a fan, I had long supported Chris Amon, and on the first day of practice approached him about doing an interview. That was what you did in those days, for there were no PRs, no intermediaries, to bar your path.
Anyway, to cut a long story short, we did the tape, and, for whatever reason, just hit it off. Chris, together with Rob Walker, was the first person in F1 to befriend me, and these two not unnaturally occupied a special place in my affections.

Given that Amon went home to New Zealand for good at the end of 1977, I see him very infrequently these days – the last time was at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in ’97 – but, more than 30 years on, I still regard him as a close friend.

Why did he never win a Grand Prix? Well, for a start, it had nothing to do with lack of talent. Mauro Forghieri says to this day that Amon should have been World Champion in 1968, his second year with Ferrari. “It was our fault,” he says. “We let Chris down too many times. In my opinion, he was as good as Jim Clark.”

Any number of times Amon looked on course to win a Grand Prix, and any number of times his car then failed him. There’s no doubt that his luck was truly appalling – but even Chris would admit there was more to it than that. For one thing, he had what amounted to a genius for going to the wrong team at the wrong time. As well as that, he was – and is – perhaps the most disorganised bloke I have ever met, and I don’t think he would deny it. More than anything, though, I think – and it’s an old cliché – that Amon truly was too nice a guy for the profession he chose. He loved racing for its own sake, and had a supreme talent for it, but the politics of F1 repelled him – and we’re talking now about the ’70s!

By the end of 1976 Amon had had enough of F1, but wasn’t yet through with racing. When Walter Wolf, in addition to launching his own F1 team, proposed to build a Can-Am car, he asked Chris to run the car, and to drive it, and the offer was accepted.

Problem was, it was a terrible car, utterly wayward in its handling, and I think there’s no doubt that Amon, very much coming to the end of his driving career, was extremely ill at ease in it. “I think I might put that kid Villeneuve in it,” he said to me on the phone one night, and, sure enough, right after the Can-Am race at St Jovite, that was what he did. This was indeed the last race of his life – and at a circuit at which he had previously excelled. This was when you saw him, and your impressions were absolutely right: he was tired, running the team as well as driving, and that car definitely unsettled him.

Years later, at a Grand Prix somewhere, Gilles was talking about the shortcomings of his Ferrari 126C, which, he said, was so short of grip it was laughable. “Is it the worst car you’ve ever driven?” I asked, and he laughed. “Hey, come on, are you forgetting the Wolf? Nothing will ever come close to that!”