Sporting Hero Alex Zanardi in Serious Handbike Accident, in Serious but Stable Condition

Amputee Alex Zanardi was involved in a very serious crash during a stage of the Paralympic handbike ‘Obiettivo Tricolore’ relay race in Italy on Friday 19th June.

The incident occurred at 17.05 local time, with Zanardi losing control of his handbike and overturning, sliding into the oncoming lane and striking a truck.

The accident happened on the PS146, in a strongly wooded area, meaning the medical helicopter was not able to land at the crash site. Zanardi had to be transferred to a nearby field in order to be air lifted to hospital.

He underwent around 3 hours of both neurosurgical and maxillofacial (jaw and face) surgery on Friday at the Santa Maria alle Scotte hospital in Siena.

Alex Zanardi is an amputee racing driver and a leading Paralympian. He won 4 gold medals on his handbike in the London 2012 and Rio 2016 Paralympic Games.

He had a truncated Formula 1 career in the 1990s, driving for Jordan, Minardi, Lotus and Williams, but only scoring 1 point and only completed 1 full season in his final F1 year with Williams in 1999.

In between his F1 season Zanardi competed in the CART series (turned IndyCar series) for Chip Ganassi Racing and Mo Nunn Racing. He finished 3rd in his first season in 1996, before taking 2 titles in a row in 1997 and 1998. After his F1 season in 1999, Zanardi failed to secure a drive in 2000 in CART and returned to the series with Mo Nunn Racing in 2001.

In the 15th round of the championship at Germany’s Lausitzring, Zanardi was leading the race in the closing laps. A late pitstop saw him on cold tyres, and when spun when merging back onto the track. Patrick Carpentier narrowly avoided him but Alex Tagliani was not so fortunate, T-boning Zanardi at full speed. Zanardi lost both legs and nearly 3 quarters of his blood, and was saved by rapid medical intervention.

Zanardi then decided to build his own custom prosthetic legs after being dissatisfied with the limitations of commercially available ones. This allowed him to return to racing as soon as 2003 with hand operated throttle and brakes. Before the 2003 German 500 at Lausitzring, Zanardi ceremonially drove the 13 laps he failed to complete in 2001, where he even lapped fast enough that had he been competing at the event, he would’ve qualified in 5th. This persuaded Zanardi to make a full time return to racing.

Between 2005 and 2009, Zanardi competed in the World Touring Car Championship with BMW, taking 4 wins in 5 years. In 2014 he raced in the Blancpain Sprint Series again with BMW, and in 2018 he made 2 starts at Misano in the DTM championship. In 2019, he competed in the Daytona 500 with BMW, finishing 9th in class.

The motorsport community wishes Alex a speedy and successful recovery.

Alex Zanardi at the 2019 Daytona 500