Alessandro Zanardi
A tremendously popular driver who dazzled in Champ Car and disappointed in Formula One, before losing his legs in horrific fashion at the Lausitzring and then staged a brave and remarkable comeback to win in the European Touring Car Championship and then World Touring Car Championship.
The first chapter in the career of this untypically quiet and unassuming Italian began with seven seasons spent racing karts before he contested the national Formula 3 series in 1988. His promise shone through the following year but his Racing for Italy Ralt RT33 was handicapped when a change to unleaded fuel in mid-season hobbled his Toyota engine and his results inevitably suffered. However, switching to a Dallara chassis in 1990, Alessandro finished second in the championship just three points adrift of Roberto Colciago, winning two of the series' 12 rounds.
Having made an inauspicious debut in F3000 at the tail-end of the 1989 season, nothing much was expected of Zanardi when he took his place in the new Il Barone Rampante team for the start of the 1991 campaign. Extensive pre-season testing gave the Italian an early advantage, but despite victories at Vallelunga and Mugello he eventually lost the championship to the more consistent finishing record of Christian Fittipaldi. Not that it really mattered, for by this time Zanardi had been chosen to fill the Jordan seat vacated by Michael Schumacher for the final three races of the season.
His hopes of a place in the Tyrrell line-up for 1992 were dashed when the team opted for Andrea de Cesaris, but he secured a testing contract with Benetton and ultimately made three unhappy appearances for Minardi in place of his former F3000 adversary Fittipaldi, who had injured his back,
Alessandro was offered a chance to prove himself in 1993 when Mika Häkkinen vacated Lotus for McLaren, and team boss Peter Collins was to be pleased with the Italian's early form. He drove a storming race at Monaco, where he was unlucky to miss the points, and his contribution to the development of the team's highly complex active suspension programme drew warm praise, but his season was to come to a premature end after an extremely violent 150 mph accident at Spa's notorious Eau Rouge. The car was destroyed and Zanardi in hospital with severe concussion.
While he recovered from this shaking, he was rested in favour of Pedro Lamy for the remaining Grands Prix. The Portuguese hot-shot retained the ride for the 1994 season, although Zanardi was kept on in the role of test driver. As fate would have it, Lamy was himself subsequently badly injured in a testing accident at Silverstone, putting Alessandro back in for the balance of a dispiriting season as the once great Team Lotus heaved its dying breath.
Alex was forced to sit out the 1995 season, save for an occasional Lotus GT drive, but at the end of the year he secured a deal to compete in the Indy Car series with Target/Chip Ganassi Racing after glowing recommendations from Adrian Reynard and Rick Gorne. Alex adapted to CART in a sensational manner. The brilliant Italian won 15 races from his 51 starts and claimed successive PPG Cup championships in 1997 and 1998.
Zanardi’s success in Champ Car meant he naturally came into Formula One focus once more and Alex signed to drive for Williams, partnering Ralf Schumacher for the 1999 season. Finding the cars he returned to differing quite dramatically from the F1 cars he’d left behind, Zanard struggled to adapt
With an inexperienced engineer for much of the season and more than his fair share of unreliability, throughout the season Zanardi failed to score a single point, whilst team-mate Ralf Schumacher took some 35. Alex’s best performance came at Monza, where he qualified in fourth and finished seventh, but he was dropped from Williams squad at the end of the year, meaning than British driver Jenson Button got the chance of a lifetime with a drive for the 2000 season.
Zanardi was still under contract and being paid by Williams in 2000 so sat out the season and enjoyed life away from the track. 2001 saw the Italian make a return to Champ Cars with his former engineer, Mo Nunn, now a team-owner in his own right. With a new team it took time for Zanardi to get fully up to speed, and when it did look like everything was coming good, Zanardi suffered his horrific accident at the German Lausitzring, losing the lower half of both of his legs. Despite cheating death, Alex fought back in remarkable fashion, learning to walk on the artificial limbs he consistently modified and improved. Some twenty months after that fateful day in Germany, Zanardi was back in the Champ Car cockpit, and before an emotional crowd he completed 13 laps to symbolically complete his unfinished 2001 race.
2004 saw Alex make a real return to racing, driving for BMW in the European Touring Car Championship, where he took a sixth place in the final race of the year at Dubai. The following year Zanardi, after a win in the Italian Touring Car Championship at Mugello, then scored his first ever WTCC victory at Oschersleben. A huge crowd favourite in the category, Alex proceeded to take another win (at Istanbul) in 2006, and remains an integral part of the BMW family.
