Alessandro Zanardi born in Bologna, an f1 racer, a CART racer is one of the toughest customers one would ever see in the world. Not because he was arrogant or anything. He lost both, yes both his legs in a CART race in Euro speedway in Germany. As Alex Zanardi was exiting the pit lane he lost control and skidded onto the track were he was clipped by a fellow racer, Tagilani who was traveling at a speed in excess of 200 MPH. Alex Zanardi’s Legs were severed off in the accident leaving him amputated below the knee.
Alex Zanardi started his career lik any other F1 racer he raced GO-Karts then moving to Formula 3 then Formula 3000. He won on his debut in F3000, he was not only the rookie of the season, he finished second in championship that year. Ya some debut season right. Having attracted the eyes of several constructors in F1 he moved to f1 in 1991. He joined the Jordan team. He started two races with them. Occasionally filling in for others racers on the grid. He was then on the roster in the Lotus team. But when the team’s active suspension was voted out of Formula 1 the team lost the competitive edge. He failed to score a point that season. He switched to the CART racing series where he became an instant hit.
He was one of those guys who would do a ‘donut’ on the track after winning the race. He became a phenomenon there. He repeated his performance of being the Rookie of the year and also finished second in the championship. He was promptly brought back into the F1 fold by Sir Frank Williams. Williams were not competitive and history repeated itself, his season was not competitive, mainly due to the reliability issues of the Williams car. So he went back to his old job, CART racing. He was fighting his way up the grid when the accident occurred.
Most of them put Zanardi away, wrote him off. The fighter in him was in full frontal attack. He put on prosthetic legs went o rehabilitation. He passed out of rehabilitation in half the time the doctors expected him to. He not only did that he did something nobody would have imagined him to do. He wanted to be strapped in the race car and complete the rest of the laps in the Euro Speedway. He amazed everybody again by doing the remaining laps at race speed. . Imagine racing at full speed when you have prosthetic legs from knee down. The spirit of Alex Zanardi cannot be compared with anything on and off the race track.
. If any of you were wonderin where Mr.Zanardi is, taking his retirement. You are all proved very wrong by him. He is very much in the racing scenario. He races in the European touring cars along with Chris Goodwin of ESPN-STAR.. It is like u can’t keep this guy of a driving seat. He won races in touring car and celebrated his victories true Zanardi style wid ‘donuts’ Alex Zanardi’s autobiography is called “My sweetest victory”, a fitting title to the autobiography of a racer, a fighter. To the fighting spirit of Alex Zanardi then.
