Role model Alex Zanardi returns to racing

Alex Zanardi will be back under engine power in 2014.

In 2004, three years after losing his legs in a horror Champ Car crash, the former F1 driver defied the odds by racing full-time for BMW in the European touring car championship.

But he then turned to hand cycling, soaring to the top of that sport with gold medals at the 2012 paralympic games in London.

Now, at the age of 47, Alex Zanardi - who last raced in F1 in 1999 with Williams - is returning to four wheels once again.

He has been signed to drive a modified BMW in the Blancpain Sprint Series.

"Even after leaving the sport in 2009, I was still a racing driver at heart," said Zanardi.

BMW motor sport chief Jens Marquardt said: "From both a human and a sporting aspect, Alex is a role model to all of us."

About the author

Leopold

Leopold Pleijsier founded F1-Fansite.com in 2001 and has followed Formula 1 since the early 1980s. He writes about daily F1 news, race weekends, drivers and the sport’s history.

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