Alex Zanardi died at home in Bologna on 1 May 2026, aged 59. In this special bonus episode, Chequered Past tells his story from the beginning: the Bologna boyhood shaped by loss, the karting prodigy who swept the 1987 European championship, the Formula 1 career that promised more than it delivered, the two CART titles with Chip Ganassi, the famous Corkscrew pass at Laguna Seca that rewrote the rulebook, the catastrophic accident at Lausitzring in 2001 that should have ended everything, and the extraordinary second and third careers — in adapted touring cars, and then as a four-time Paralympic champion and twelve-time para-cycling world champion — that defined his legacy.

He showed the world how to look at what remained rather than what was lost.

Cover Image: By Robk23oxf - Alex zanardi brandshatch2014, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

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