1968 Original Vintage Press Photo, F1, Nürburgring, German G.P., Chris Amon, Ferrari

Description

Authentic Vintage 

Geoffrey Goddard 

1968 Press Photo

 

1968 Nurburgring, German Grand Prix

 

Chris Amon driving for Ferrari

 

20.5 cm x 15.5 cm

 

Christopher Arthur Amon MBE (1943 – 2016) was a New Zealand motor racing driver. He was active in Formula One racing in the 1960s and 1970s, and is widely regarded as one of the best F1 drivers never to win a championship Grand Prix. His reputation for bad luck was such that fellow driver Mario Andretti once joked that “if he became an undertaker, people would stop dying”. Former Ferrari Technical Director Mauro Forghieri stated that Amon was “by far the best test driver I have ever worked with. He had all the qualities to be a World Champion but bad luck just wouldn’t let him be”

The German Grand Prix (German: Großer Preis von Deutschland) was a motor race that took place most years since 1926, with 75 races having been held. The race has been held at only three venues throughout its history: the Nürburgring in Rhineland-Palatinate, Hockenheimring in Baden-Württemberg and occasionally AVUS in Berlin. The race continued to be known as the German Grand Prix, even through the era when the race was held in West Germany.

The 1968 German Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at the Nürburgring on 4 August 1968. It was race 8 of 12 in both the 1968 World Championship of Drivers and the 1968 International Cup for Formula One Manufacturers. The race was held in extremely wet and foggy conditions. Even with the treacherous conditions, 200,000 spectators turned up for the race on Sunday afternoon. The race turned out to be a one-man show by Scotsman Jackie Stewart. While Graham Hill took the lead at the start, by the end of the first lap Stewart had moved into first place and built a nine-second lead. He put his superior Dunlop wet tires to great effect and by the end of lap 2, had extended his lead to 34 seconds. When the race ended after 14 laps, Stewart crossed the line more than 4 minutes in front of second placed Hill. The eventual World Champion had spun on lap 11, but was able to get out of the car, push it into the right direction and keep going before third-placed Jochen Rindt could catch up. Chris Amon had battled with Hill for 11 laps over second place, rarely having more than a second between the two, until Amon spun out of the race on the same lap as Hill did.

The Nürburgring is a 150,000-person capacity motorsports complex located in the town of Nürburg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It features a Grand Prix race track built in 1984, and a long Nordschleife “North loop” track, built in the 1920s, around the village and medieval castle of Nürburg in the Eifel mountains. The north loop is 20,830 km (12,943 mi) long and contains more than 300 meters (1,000 feet) of elevation change from its lowest to highest points. Scottish racing driver Jackie Stewart nicknamed the track “The Green Hell”