SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone - Book Review: Alex Zanardi: My Story

He won back-to-back CART Championships in 1997 and 1998, and made that now famous, daring and unexpected move on Bryan Herta for the lead at Laguna Seca's corkscrew, just three corners before the finish of the race.

Time in between the races is spent with family and with friends, many of his friendships were started during his teenage years, and his early racing years.

After a sabbatical in 1999 and a less than a satisfying return to Formula 1 in the year 2000 with the Williams team, Zanardi crossed the Atlantic once again to race in Champ Cars in 2001, this time for the team started and headed by his friend Morris Nunn. Nunn had been the technical director at team Target Ganassi, the team where Zanardi won his two titles.

One very interesting observation about the handling of Formula 1 cars is that according to Zanardi, they had less grip than the Champ Cars and were sliding all over the place! That should fuel further discussion in the forums regarding whether or not F1 cars slide!

The book offers interesting insight into the wheeling and dealing of Formula 1, CART, as well as funny anecdotes and sobering comments about some of his fellow drivers and other characters in CART and Formula 1.

At Lauzitsring in Germany in 2001, after a difficult season with little success to show for all the team's hard work, with 13 laps to go, Zanardi went from the lead of the race to the pits for a final pit stop. As he exited the pits, his car spun out onto the track directly ahead of Alex Tagliani who did not have any chance to avoid Zanardi's car.

The accident was massive, and as a consequence, Zanardi lost both his legs, just barely escaping death.

My Story, is Zanardi's own account of his early years as a very restless child in Castel Maggiore in Bologna. How and why he got into karting, and how his career suffered highs and lows, until he finally broke through in CART.

He recounts with honesty and always with humor, the turning-points in his life up to and beyond that day in Germany in 2001.

Included is his battle to regain his health which in many ways seems parallel to the story of another legless hero; Douglas Bader, and the day he completed the last 13 laps at Lauzitsring, 18 months after his near fatal accident.

The book concludes with those 13 unfinished laps at Lauzitsring in 2003, but the story is far from over. Zanardi went on to race in the European Touring Car Championship.

Alex Zanardi tells his story in unsentimental terms, in a straight-forward fashion, full of hope, optimism, and with a sharp eye for the comic moment in any circumstances.

Here's to you, Pineapple!

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