The name Alex Zanardi is synonymous in the world of motorsports, and redefines inspiration, devotion, and determination as you will see once you hear his story. Alex Zarnadi is an Italian race car driver and paracyclist who has been racing anything with wheels since the age of 13, when he built his first ‘go-cart’.
He was born Alessandro Zarnadi in the colossal city of Bologna, Italy on October 23rd, 1966. After spending the late 80s climbing the Formula ranking by advancing through the Formula 3 Series, he took the ‘checkered-flag’ of his inaugural race as a Formula 1 driver in 1991.
Zanardi would lead an excellent Formula 1 debut season claiming three victories, but unfortunately, his F1 career would not follow suit. The 1992 season wasn’t a follow-up, sophomore success to his impressive freshmen season, as he only see action as a fill-in driver and would end the season signing with Lotus. While the 1993 season began with a promising outlook with a steady ranking and great performance at the Brazillian Grand Prix; injuries and a terrible crash would bring the season to an early close. After a late start to the 1994 season, Zarnadi’s return to the track was disappointing with 13th place being the highest he would qualify. He wouldn’t fair well in the Spanish Grand Prix of that season which was claimed by Damon Hill taking first place, Michael Schumacher in second, and Mark Blundell with third.
After the 1994 season, Alex Zanardi began a 5-year hiatus from Formula One until 1999 when he signed a 3 year contract with Frank Williams. During his F1 hiatus, he competed in Sports Car and CART racing series and found renewed success while rivaling teammate, Michael Andretti. Zanardi would take three victories, a host of pole positions and earn the 1995 Champ Racing Rookie of the Year award/title. Alex Zarnadi’s return to Formula1 would turn out to be a brief stint after his first year with Williams would turn out to be incident-filled and result in a contract termination. Spending 2000 unsigned, Zanardi decided to make a CART return and had faired quite well during the 2001 season until the horrific crash that made him an amputee.
On September 15th, 2001, only four days after 9/11, with only 13 laps to the end of the race at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz in Brandenburg, Germany; Zanardi’s car was literally split in half after being struck by fellow driver, Alex Tagliani at 194mph. Zanardi lost both legs during the crash and nearly three-fourths of his blood as stated by Peter White during an interview with Zanardi in 2002, who also states Zanardi arrived at a Berlin hospital with only one liter of blood.
Tragically, the accident has become the pinnacle and defining moment of Zanardi’s career and has catapulted him to new career heights and achievements. When most people, including Zanardi’s wife thought the accident had discouraged and prevented him from ever racing and certainly ever driving again—he proved them all wrong. The accident and becoming an amputee was the new ‘driving’ force behind Alex Zanardi.
In slightly less than two year’s time, Zanardi had recovered from the accident and received prosthetic legs which he personally designed and was racing for BMW in the FIA by 2003 and maintained a 6 year tenure until 2009. His first win since the accident came in 2005 and marked the beginning of a great season and a host of victories from 2006 to 2009, in which he announced his retirement from the circuit. In 2007 Zanardi took his racing career into uncharted areas previously unavailable to him prior to Lausitz accident—hand/paracycling. He found success in handcycling as well; competing in the 2007 New York City Handcycle Marathon, the 2009 Para-Cycling Road World Championship, in addition to the 2009 Venice Marathon and 2010 Rome City Marathon—both of which he claimed first-place victories, and finally, he took home gold and silver medals in the 2012 Summer Paralympics and 2012 London Paralympics.
Alex Zanardi has become a true beacon of hope and inspiration following his accident. He has continued to race and maintain a thriving and successful career; he has won gold and silver Paralympics medals, and was Top Gear’s 2012 Man of the Year recipient. He has written two successful books, and was featured on HBO’s Real Sports, and recently competed in the 2014 Ironman World Championship. It’s safe to say, Alex Zanardi has no plans of slowing down!
Contributor - DWManagement
We are standing by to answer your questions or get you a No Obligation price quote.