[F1] TV - BBC2 tonight....

[Andrew70]

BBC2, 11:20pm (duration, half hour)

Alex Zanardi : Life Goes On.

Documentary about the Italian racing driver who lost both legs in a crash.

A.

[Mr M0by]

Thanks for the heads up.:thumbs:

[soberion]

Saw it on BBC3 the other week, very interesting and a real lesson to us all.

[Samiad]

Great, will try to stay up and watch this. Thanks for the heads up.

[The Bear]

Cheers.

[BlackJedi]

(Apologies for the long post.)

I watched this last night - somehow I've missed it whenever it's been on.

In 2001 we were getting very excited. We had bought tickets for the first Champ Car race to be held in the UK for many years, and at last we'd see the great Zanardi in action. We'd been following him since 1996, through his glory years at TCGR with back-to-back championships, and through his terrible season in F1. Now he was back in Champ Cars, and we'd see him in the flesh at Rockingham. We wanted to see the race, yes, but really, it was Zanardi we wanted to see.

The Lausitzring race was the week before, and unfortunately there was no live TV coverage. My girlfriend was listening to the commentary stream from cart.com while watching the live timing applet. It was nail-biting - after a poor season, he was finally putting together a great performance. With less than 20 laps to go, he was leading, but had to make a final pitstop: if everything worked out, he'd come out behind a group of cars who also had to make one final stop. He was on course to win.

My girlfriend couldn't take the tension, so she turned the volume off. "I'll wait a few minutes, then see if he's won," she said. She got up and left the room, came back, left... she was pacing like an expectant father, nervous, excited, scared.

She couldn't take it any more. She turned the volume up. And the commentators were talking in hushed tones about an accident; within a couple of minutes it was obvious there had been an awful crash involving Zanardi and Tagliani. You could tell it was no normal accident - you could tell it was serious. Zanardi was being airlifted to hospital.

The audio broadcast finished, and we were cut off. Desperately we searched for information on what was going on: a correspondent from seventhgear.com was in the press room, and started relaying information to the website. The news appeared: he'd lost both legs, and was in critical condition.

The next week was hell.

He was put into a chemically-induced coma to aid recovery, but there was no way to know if he'd suffered organ or brain damage from the blood loss. An accident like that puts a tremendous strain on the body, and many people don't survive. We had to make a decision about Rockingham. We'd bought the tickets specifically to see Zanardi, although we loved the sport in general, and it felt strange to be going when he was lying unconscious in hospital in Germany.

In the end we decided to go for free practice day and see how we felt. We'd go and support his friends and his team, but if it was too much to handle, we wouldn't go on qualifying or race day. So we turned up, wandered past the empty garage where his car should have been, and felt thoroughly miserable.

As we wandered around, I heard something over the PA system. "Shh..." I said. "Listen..." We stopped, strained our ears, and heard one of the safety team doctors being interviewed. He'd spoken to the hospital in Germany a few minutes before, and Zanardi was awake and aware of his condition. He'd wanted to know who was on pole for Rockingham. It was at that moment that we felt it was going to be OK. He was alive, he was going to stay alive, and though we'd never see him race, at least we hadn't lost him for good.

Flash forward to 2004. Donington Park race track, rounds 11 and 12 of the European Touring Car Championship. Zanardi was striding around the paddock on his prosthetic legs, putting in decent lap times in his BMW, and being generally engaging and entertaining.

We watched him walk, we watched him race, and I shook him by the hand and told him he was my hero.

Zanardi at Donington (http://www.adocentyn.com/azdonington.jpg)

[Big A]

when he got to hospital he only had 1 litre of blood left pumping around his body :eek:

[BlackJedi]

I'm resurrecting this thread from many months ago (even though the thread title isn't very descriptive!), as it seems the story of Signor Zanardi is not yet over.

Yesterday, Alessandro Zanardi won a World Touring Car race at Oschersleben. In WTCC, there are two races. The top 8 from race 1 are put in reverse order on the grid for race 2; Zanardi, starting from 15th in race 1, fought his way up to 8th by the finish line, putting him on pole for race 2. Often the driver who starts on pole in race 2 is quickly swamped by the drivers from the top teams, but in this case Zanardi held his lead until the final lap, when Jorg Muller made a daring move into the lead only to run wide and drop to third, leaving Zanardi to take the chequered flag and his first win in a world championship since 1998.

He went on to celebrate with the donuts he made famous during his years in Champ Cars.

Report at Eurosport (http://www.eurosport.com/home/pages/v4/l0/s224/e9226/sport_lng0_spo224_evt9226_sto758714.shtml) along with some videos (http://www.eurosport.com/home/pages/v4/l0/s224/playermultimedia_lng0_rub9_spo224_ven21449.shtml) 2 (http://www.eurosport.com/home/pages/v4/l0/s224/playermultimedia_lng0_rub9_spo224_ven21443.shtml) .

Forza Zanardi!

[Nujol]

Wow unbelieveable