Alex Zanardi
Alex Zanardi was an Italian racing driver and Paralympic handcyclist born on October 23, 1966, in Bologna.
He competed in Formula One between 1991 and 1999, and in CART between 1996 and 2001, winning back-to-back national championship titles in 1997 and 1998 with Chip Ganassi Racing. He also competed in the World Touring Car Championship from 2005 to 2009, making his motorsport career one that spanned well over a decade across multiple series.
Zanardi later became a Paralympic athlete and handcyclist, competing at the Summer Paralympics in 2012 and 2016. In para-cycling he won four Paralympic gold medals and 12 UCI Road World Championships. Alongside his sporting career, he also worked as a television presenter. He received a number of honors over the course of his life, including the Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, the Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic, the Gold Collar for Sports Merit, the Nettuno d'oro, and gold, silver, and bronze medals for athletic prowess. He died on May 1, 2026, in Bologna. His career moved across two distinct athletic disciplines — circuit racing at the top levels of the sport, and para-cycling competition on the international stage.
Quotes by Alex Zanardi
Vancouver is a street course in the true meaning of the word. There are a lot of places where you can lose the car and end up staying there at least for the session, or for the rest of the race.
I have always had a very smooth driving style. But when I started competing as a disabled driver, I had to take that even more to the extreme.
Portland is a permanent road course built in a beautiful state, which is for me a fantastic area for many reasons. The downside is that the weather is so unpredictable that it's not uncommon to start the race on the dry and end with the rain as it happened to me in 1996 when I won my first Champ Car race.
In comparison to an able-bodied person, it's incredible, the amount of extra resistance I have, in comparison to an able body.
When I arrived in Champ Cars, which at the time used to be called Indy Cars and then got renamed CART and then renamed Champ Cars, I was racing against Jimmy Vasser, my team-mate, but more than him, I was racing against Michael Andretti, Emerson Fittapaldi, Al Unser Jr. - guys that had big names.
If you train hard and work hard eventually you will gain results, and that is the real spirit of life.
It makes me feel great when I'm driving and talking to my wife, and I look in the mirror, and my son is sleeping in the back.
I haven't done any of the things I have done to inspire others, but I am sure that if I am watching my story from the outside I would be joining the club saying, 'Wow, that guy really gets you going.'
I will do something, time to time, with motor racing. But I'll never go back, I think, to drive full-time because I've lost that anger, that desire.