Alex Zanardi

Alessandro "Alex" Zanardi (born 23 October 1966) is an Italian professional racing driver and paracyclist.

Alex Zanardi was born in Bologna, Italy on 23 October 1966, son of Dino and Anna Zanardi.

His family moved to the town of Castel Maggiore on the city's outskirts when he was four years of age.

His sister Cristina was a promising swimmer prior to her death in an automobile collision in 1979.

Zanardi began racing karts at age 13.

He built his kart from the wheels of a dustbin and pipes from his father's work.

In 1988, he joined the Italian Formula 3 series, with a fifth place as his highest finish.

In 1989, Zanardi took two pole positions and three podiums despite his team's switching to unleaded fuel, which reduced his car's engine power.

He also raced in Formula One from 1991 to 1994 and again in 1999; his best result was a sixth-place finish in the 1993 Brazilian Grand Prix.

In 1991, he moved up to the Formula 3000 series with the Il Barone Rampante team, themselves newcomers to the series.

He won his F3000 debut race, scoring two more wins that season and finishing second in the championship.

After testing for the Footwork team, Zanardi mounted a strong season in F3000.

Eddie Jordan looked to replace Roberto Moreno for the remainder of the 1991 season, bringing in Zanardi for the last three races.

Zanardi finished two of them, both in 9th place.

In, however, Zanardi had to be content with guest drives for Minardi, replacing the injured Christian Fittipaldi.

In the off-season, he tested for Benetton, but he contracted with Lotus for 1993.

Zanardi compared reasonably to teammate Johnny Herbert in 1993 and was important in fine-tuning the team's active suspension system, scoring his only F1 point at the Brazilian Grand Prix.

He was injured when an elderly motorist collided with his bicycle, knocking him down and running over Zanardi's left foot.

Despite several broken bones, Zanardi raced in Germany, but he spun out and did not finish.

Zanardi's season ended prematurely after he sustained a concussion as a result of a crash in practice for the Belgian Grand Prix.

Still recovering, Zanardi missed the beginning of the season while he was working as a test driver for Lotus, but he returned in the Spanish Grand Prix, replacing Pedro Lamy, who had been injured in a testing crash.

He later stated that in hindsight, he should have stayed on as the Benetton test driver as he would likely have been given a full-time drive for 1994 following Riccardo Patrese's retirement, where he would have been in a race-winning car alongside that year's world champion Michael Schumacher.

During 1995, Zanardi went to the United States for a drive in the CART Series.

He felt that finding a race seat would be easy with Formula One experience, but drew no interest from any team.

However, Reynard Commercial Director Rick Gorne managed to secure Zanardi a test drive at Homestead with Chip Ganassi Racing.

Zanardi signed a contract on 23 October 1995.

He won the CART championship in 1997 and 1998, and took 15 wins in the series.

He returned to CART in 2001, but a major crash in the 2001 American Memorial resulted in the amputation of his legs.

He returned to racing less than two years after the accident, competing in the European Touring Car Championship in 2003–2004 and then in the World Touring Car Championship between 2005 and 2009; he scored four wins.

In September 2011, Zanardi won his first senior international handcycling medal, the silver medal in the H4 category time trial at the UCI World Road Para-Cycling Championships.

In addition to continuing to race cars, Zanardi took up competition in handcycling, a form of paralympic cycling, with the stated goal of representing Italy at the 2012 Summer Paralympics.

In September 2012 he won gold medals at the London Paralympics in the individual H4 time trial and the individual H4 road race, followed by a silver medal in the mixed H1-4 team relay, and in September 2016 he won a gold and a silver medal at the 2016 Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro.

However, Lotus struggled in its final season in F1 and Zanardi failed to score a single point or qualify higher than 13th.

For the races in Belgium and Portugal, Zanardi was replaced by Belgian pay driver Philippe Adams.

With Lotus Formula One defunct, Zanardi practiced to race in sports car racing.

His first meeting was at a Porsche Supercup event at Imola.

Zanardi later raced at a four-hour event at Donington Park, where he and Alex Portman retired with eight minutes remaining despite leading by over a lap.

The pair managed to finish 4th at a rainy day race at Silverstone.

On 19 June 2020, Zanardi was involved in a serious road accident while competing in the Obiettivo tricolore handcycling race, near Siena.

After being transferred to hospital, Zanardi underwent three hours of neurosurgery and maxillofacial surgery before being placed in a medically induced coma.