02/05/2026
Vale Alessandro Zanardi.
It started with an Alfa Romeo engine… In 1990, driving a Dallara-Alfa Romeo in Formula 3, a young drive from Bologna won the European Championship race at Le Mans - beating, among others, Michael Schumacher. The Alfa connection deepened in 1992. While still working his way up the ladder, Zanardi made select appearances in the Italian Superturismo Championship aboard the Totip Jolly Club's Alfa Romeo 155 GTA.
What followed was one of the most extraordinary lives in sporting history.
Two CART championships (1997–98), 15 wins, and the invention of the post-race donut celebration - we’ve become used to seeing it now, but he was the first driver to do it after a win. The catastrophic crash at the Lausitzring in 2001 that took both his legs. Then two years later, a return to that same track to symbolically finish the 13 laps he never completed, still fast enough to have qualified fifth. But it was the start of his new life.He went on to design his own prosthetics. He took up handbike racing from scratch. He won four Paralympic gold medals across London 2012 and Rio 2016, plus 12 world titles.
A life changing collision with a truck in June 2020 during a charity handbike relay in Tuscany saw years of rehabilitation but this time largely out of the public eye. He never raced again.
Alex died on May 1st, 2026, at home, surrounded by his family.
Italy has lost perhaps its most complete symbol of resilience and the world a man who never let adversity stop him.
