Alex Zanardi Age, Death, Wife, Children, Family, Biography

Some Lesser Known Facts About Alex Zanardi

• Alex Zanardi was a native of Bologna, the capital of Emilia-Romagna, Italy.

• It was at the age of three years when Zanardi, together with his family, shifted to the suburb of Castel Maggiore.

• His sister Cristina was also potential as a swimmer before she was killed in a road accident in 1979, when she was 15.

• As a child already, Zanardi was getting used to kart racing as early as he was 13 years old.

• His father purchased him a go-kart just prior to his 14th birthday, and Zanardi later reported it was by far the best day of his life.

• He made his first kart with dustbin wheels and pipes used by his father as a plumber.

• In the coming few years he had won three go-kart titles in Italy and the European championship.

• He took the top five rounds of the CIK-FIA European Championship in the top class in 1987.

• In 1988, he joined the Italian Formula Three championship. It was in his stint in Formula Three series that he met Daniela Manni who is the manager of Erre 3 racing team. In 1996 the two married each other.

• In 1991, Zanardi made his debut in the International Formula 3000 with Il Barone Rampante, a newcomer team in the series.

• He won his first F3000 race and went on to win two more races, and finished second in the championship to Christian Fittipaldi.

• Zanardi with strong F3000 season attracted the attention of Formula One.

• Through joining Jordan, he ended having become an unwilling party in a court case between Jordan boss Eddie Jordan and Flavio Briatore of Benetton as Briatore attempted to transfer Michael Schumacher out of Jordan to Benetton.

• In the later days of the 1991 season, Eddie Jordan contracted Zanardi in at Jordan in place of Roberto Moreno in the final three races of the season.

• He drove as a guest in 1992 in the car of Minardi instead of the injured Christian Fittipaldi, and made two non-qualifications and a retirement.

• He had tested with Benetton during the off-season, but signed with Lotus to race in 1993.

• In 1993 at Lotus, Zanardi matched the performance of his teammate Johnny Herbert and helped in the design and the active suspension system of the team.

• The only Formula One point he received was in the Brazilian Grand Prix of the same year. A mature motorist hit his bicycle, and rolled over his left foot, fracturing several bones.

• Zanardi did race in Germany with the injury but he lost control of the bike and failed to finish.

• His part in the season was cut short because he got a concussion in a practice crash during the Belgian Grand Prix. Zanardi.

• Lotus endured its last season in the Formula One racing and Zanardi did not manage to contribute even one point or better than position 13.

• Now that Lotus was no longer in Formula One, Zanardi began to race sports cars.

• His debut was at an event at Imola in the Porsche Supercup. Zanardi made a trip to the United States in 1995, to race in the CART series.

• He had hoped that his Formula One experience would easily lure the interest of the team but had no takers.

• He was offered a test drive at Homestead with Chip Ganassi Racing by Reynard Commercial Director Rick Gorne and on 23 October 1995, Zanardi signed a contract.

• The race engineer of the team Mo Nunn had advised Chip Ganassi not to sign him on because Italy drivers made too many errors.

• Zanardi was awarded Rookie of the Month.

• He made an overtake on race-leader Bryan Herta at the Corkscrew corner, going through the dirt in order to accomplish that overtake.

• That pass, which became popular with fans as just The Pass, received extensive publicity and was not allowed in subsequent years.

• Zanardi, in 1997, won five out of seventeen races in the CART series, including three consecutive wins, and the Drivers’ Championship.

• During the same season, he also coined the habit of spinning his car in tight circles after wins, which left circular tracks of doughnut-like tyres on the track.

• This practice won him the title of the Donut King (and gained widespread popularity as a post-victory celebration across America).

• He was even more dominant in his Ganassi Reynard-Honda in the season of 1998.

• He competed in nineteen races of which he won seventeen and stood on the podium fifteen times in these nineteen races.

• Throughout his CART career, Zanardi had 15 wins, 10 poles and 28 podiums.

• He became so famous in the United States that he even appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman and had his picture printed on his boxes of cornflakes.

• In 1999, Honda also paid tribute to his successive two consecutive CART championship wins by launching the Alex Zanardi Edition Acura NSX into the United States market.

• The car also had a revised suspension, fixed roof, lightweight BBS wheels, lightweight rear spoiler, manual steering and a lighter battery which made it 67.5 kg lighter than the standard version.

• Just 51 of these were completed, all painted in a new Formula Red colour to match the car he drove in Chip Ganassi Racing.

• Sir Frank Williams was impressed by Zanardi’s CART achievement.

• Zanardi approached Williams in 1997 to make him aware that he was interested in signing a new deal.

• In July 1998, Zanardi signed a three-year deal with Williams. Inside, Zanardi finished tenth and had a good drive past the end of the race, when he spun into the gravel after getting swept under the oil of Johnny Herbert’s car at the Villeneuve chicane.

• He out-qualified Schumacher by more than a half a second at Monaco.

• In the first race, his seat in his Williams separated from the cockpit and he raced on to finish 8th.

• He was forced to a 17th qualifying position and his gearbox locked up after a pit stop in Spain.

• Trouble followed in Canada as well, with practice time again being restricted.

• He qualified ahead of Schumacher, but pitched in to the gravel early in the race.

• He then also lost time at the start/finish lines because of a safety car period and had a stop-go penalty, followed by a crash while attempting a move with Luca Badoer’s Minardi.

• The Williams team were wildly under-estimating the conditions in the wet and Zanardi was to start off in 15th place before aquaplaning during the race at the French Grand Prix.

• He made a 13th qualifying position and finished in 11th place at Silverstone.

• The team had to simulate a failed radio on lap 33 in Austria because he was lost on a pitboard and was only able to get a second pitboard but then ran out of gas while being pursued by Pedro Diniz.

• While travelling in Malaysia, he suffered a front rim injury as a result of a first lap collision and required pitstop.

• He later went wide and wrecked the radiators, had yet another pit stop and finished T10.

• Zanardi elected to put himself 16th, moved up to ninth, and the pit-lane limiter was engaged in the final round, forcing his engine to die when he attempted to shut it off on the first lap in Japan.

• The two ended up splitting on the deal at the end of that season for an estimated $4 million.

• His only season with Williams was a no points, 10 retirements in 16 races.

• In 2000, no team signed Zanardi but he kept up his interest in a CART comeback.

• He passed the course at Sebring in July working for Mo Nunn, and made 246 laps and signed with the team in 2001.

• Outcomes for the remainder of the season were moderate.

• He has three top ten finishes including fourth in the 2001 Molson Indy Toronto.

• Four days after the hijacked planes of 11 September 2001, struck the U.S., Zanardi began this race at the back of the pack at the EuroSpeedway Lausitz on 15 September 2001.

• He then proceeded to make a late pit stop and, as he was reintegrating himself back into the race, lost control of his car and spun through Patrick Carpentier.

• Carpentier evaded him but just behind him, Alex Tagliani couldn’t.

• Tagliani’s vehicle crashed into Zanardi from the side behind the front bumper, ripping his car’s nose off.

• Zanardi was hit square in the thigh by the impact, sliced his left leg at the knee, and then almost all but one litre of blood volume was removed from his body.

• He had been airlifted to an intensive care unit in Berlin, courtesy of doctors Terry Trammell and Steve Olvey.

• Before he got there, his heart had stopped 3 times. He was treated quickly, and his life was saved after surgery for 3 hours to clean and close the wounds.

• Six weeks later, Zanardi was discharged from hospital and started his rehabilitation program.

• He wasn’t happy with the commercial legs available, and created custom legs of various weights and sturdiness to find the ones that were optimal for him to run in.

• In 2002, he was honored to wave the chequered flag at the Toronto race by CART.

• Zanardi once again appeared at the Lausitzring in May of 2003, prior to the rescheduled German 500.

• The time he missed out on because of a lack of mechanical controls in 2001 was made up in a vehicle equipped with hand-operated brakes and accelerator pedals.

• His fastest lap was 37.487 seconds which would have been good enough to qualify him fifth for the actual race.

• In a round of the ETC Championship, Zanardi even had a race later in the year at the European Touring Car Championship round at Monza, his first race since the accident, in the tourer laden with his prosthesis, which he used with his feet.

• He jumped back into racing full-time in 2004, for BMW Team Italy-Spain in the FIA European Touring Car Championship.

• It was changed to the World Touring Car Championship in 2005.

• Zanardi won his first WTCC race on 24 August 2005, and followed that victory with another in Istanbul 2006 and Brno 2008 and 2009.

• In addition he’d also claimed the 2005 Italian Superturismo Championship (8 wins out of 12 races).

• At the end of the 2009 season, he made his retirement announcement from the WTCC.

• He later tried a BMW Sauber Formula One car in a special session at Valencia, Spain in late November 2006, with hand controls retrofitted into the steering wheel of the vehicle.

• Zanardi also created his own go-kart line in 2004, with the help of CRG.

• That brand has since won four CIK-FIA World Championships and the three CIK-FIA European championships including the back-to-back KF1 World championships in 2010 and 2011.

• Zanardi has co-written two books based on his life: Alex Zanardi: My Story, in 2004, with Gianluca Gasparini, and Alex Zanardi: My Sweetest Victory (also in 2004).

• He was also the author of the first several chapters of a book by former CART medical director, Steve Olvey, entitled, Rapid Response: My Inside Story as a Motor Racing Life Saver.

• His story was highlighted on a sports show on HBO called Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel.

• After becoming hooked on handcycling, Zanardi aimed to compete for Italy in the 2012 Summer Paralympics.

• His sponsor Barilla pasta contacted him in 2007 to have him come make a speech at the New York City Marathon, and he accepted them and ran in the marathon.

• He completed the training period in four weeks and ended up 4th in the handcyclist division. He competed in Para-Cycling Road World Championships in 2009 and continued to progress from there.

• In the same year, he also took the first place in Venice Marathon in the disabled category with 1 hour 13 minutes and 56 seconds.

• He was the winner of Rome City Marathon in 2010 in 01:15:53. This was Zanardi’s fourth time competing in the New York City Marathon and his first time to win it, in 2011.

• The winning season ended with Zanardi winning gold – the men’s H4 road time trial event, on 5 September at the London Paralympic Games, 27.14 seconds ahead of teammate Norbert Mosandi – on Brands Hatch in Kent, where he had also competed as a young man.

• Two days later he came out on top of road H4 finishing in front of Ernst van Dyk, South Africa, and Wim Decleir, Belgium and won the mixed team relay competition with Italy.

• The specially manufactured handbike he rode was made by Italian racing car constructor Dallara.

• Top Gear selected him as one of ‘YOUR’ men of the year 2012 and the Paralympic movement declared him the best male athlete of the 2012 Games.

• He was a medalist at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Paralympics in the ROAD – TIME TRIAL – H5 event and H5 Road Race category, as well as a silver medalist in the mixed team relay.

• He won four Gold and 2 Silver Medals during the Games.

• He has also captained the Youth Team to win a total of 12 UCI Para-cycling Road World Championships in different categories.

• Zanardi tested an at that time new BMW DTM touring car and harboured 32 laps of the Nurburgring in November 2012.

• After the test, he became re-interested in the sport and in January 2014 took to motorsports again, driving a BMW Z4 GT3 in the Blancpain Sprint Series.

• He appeared in the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters once in 2018, when he was test piloting a BMW M4 DTM at Misano.

• He but passed only last in both events, however he finished the second race in mixed conditions in 5th position.

• He admitted that he was initially taken aback when his team told him that they had finished fifth, as he thought it was a joke.

• Zanardi entered the 24 Hours of Daytona at the end of January 2019 with teammates John Edwards, Jesse Krohn and Chaz Mostert behind the wheel of a special BMW steering wheel that allowed Zanardi to use his left hand to control the accelerator and the right hand for the brakes and use the lever on the gear to shift.

• The team was 32th overall and 9th in GTLM class.

• On the evening of 1 May 2026, Alex Zanardi passed away at his home in Padua. He was 59.

• The following day, his death was announced by his family. In a statement, the family said, “Alex died peacefully, surrounded by the love of people closest to him.”

• No cause of death was mentioned. He was buried on 5 May 2026 in the Basilica of Santa Giustina in Prato della Valle, Padua.