Laguna Seca still defines Alex Zanardi’s place in IndyCar history

Tijmen van der Helm made a mess of Laguna Seca’s famous Corkscrew during Friday practice for the recent IMSA race in the No5 Porsche, locking up on entry into the plunging left hander, then scrabbling through the dirt to rejoin the track past the subsequent turn back to the right. I made a joke about it in my daily coverage, saying he “experimented with the Alex Zanardi line”.

That night, Chip Ganassi posted on social media expressing his love for Zanardi; the Italian enjoyed the greatest days of his racing career from 1996 to ’98 in the CART IndyCar series, winning the ’97 and ’98 championships in dominant style with Ganassi’s team. But the Zanardi legend was truly made at Laguna Seca in 1996, when his desperate last lap lunge on Bryan Herta at the Corkscrew took his Reynard-Honda through the dirt, into the lead, and on to an unforgettable win.

Ganassi’s post sounded cryptic and foreboding, and sure enough, I awoke the next morning in Monterey to news of Zanardi’s death at 59. Being at Laguna Seca – site of ‘The Pass’ – it was almost too much to take, and the memories soon came flooding back. The confident way Zanardi asserted himself as a rookie. How by the end of ’98 he was almost unbeatable in Indycars, yet was thoroughly beaten by Formula 1 when he got a second bite at that apple. How he struggled in his return to the CART series in 2001.

I was at EuroSpeedway Lausitz when Zanardi lost his legs in that terrible crash just four days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and I was back there 20 months later, in May ’03, when Alex strapped into a Reynard-Cosworth and drove 13 laps at speed to “finish the race” he started (and was leading prior to that fateful final pitstop) in 2001. Everyone watching from the Fernández Racing suite, including Adrián Fernández and several other drivers, wept tears of joy.

Laguna Seca 1996 and The Pass were the first indication that Alex Zanardi was a man who simply never gave up, and we saw that strength and resilience on display time and time again. Surviving the Lausitzring accident and learning to walk again on prosthetic legs of his own design was only the beginning. The Zanardi legend grew as he successfully raced and won in touring cars before switching his attention to hand cycling competition. There, too, he excelled, winning four gold and two silver medals in Paralympic competition; the venue where he won his medals in the 2012 London games was none other than Brands Hatch, where 21 years earlier he qualified on pole and finished second in Formula 3000.

“Laguna Seca was the first indication that Alex Zanardi never gave up”

Sadly, Zanardi was not indestructible after all. Devastating head injuries suffered in a June 2020 hand cycling accident ended his sporting career and, while he lived nearly six more years, he was not seen again in public life. But he continued to inspire through to the day he died.

Zanardi’s ’97 and ’98 CART championships won him a ticket back to Formula 1, yet for a long time they didn’t earn him the hero status he deserved in America because that was the height of the IndyCar split. His CART titles were won against some of IndyCar racing’s best drivers and teams, but he never raced in the Indianapolis 500 and was therefore virtually ignored by a large and influential segment of the IndyCar fanbase. That’s a shame, because Zanardi’s performances were absolutely electric in those days.