Top 103 Quotes & Sayings by Alex Zanardi
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an Italian driver Alex Zanardi.
Last updated on December 23, 2024.
We all have expectations but sometimes the greatest thing is to be surprised with what happens and to find out that it is quite different from the way you imagined it.
I am very proud to become a BMW Brand Ambassador. BMW is like a second family, and over the past years we not only enjoyed great times together at the track, but we have also become close friends.
When my son was just a kid, I remember him going for a running race at school and winning and coming to hug me. I realized my heart was absolutely full of joy, there was no space left.
I would not be who I am if I were not putting pressure on me to up the level of my game further.
I guess, when I go there in the centre, when I do my rehabilitation, I look at the people with only one leg and I actually envy them because I'd love to have one leg. I guess the ones that only have one leg, they envy the ones that they are only missing one leg below the knee, and on and on.
The perfect life is the combination of great moments and bad ones, and under that point of view, my life is fantastic, because I've certainly hit more than one bump.
In comparison to an able-bodied person, it's incredible, the amount of extra resistance I have, in comparison to an able body.
I feel very lucky, I feel my life is a never-ending privilege.
It may look weird to an outsider to watch me jump out of the car basically walking on my arms. Of course, it's very easy for me.
I'm a wild horse, to say the least, and with age, I haven't calmed down completely.
After my crash I never doubted it would be hard but I would be lying to say this new life has been a surprise to me.
My heart stopped seven times and I had to be resuscitated seven times. It's incredible I'm still here so every day I feel happy to have a second chance but I'm sorry to say I didn't see any tunnel or any light at the end of it.
Vancouver is a street course in the true meaning of the word. There are a lot of places where you can lose the car and end up staying there at least for the session, or for the rest of the race.
You don't know how many times I fell just taking ridiculous small steps.
It's not much different to Formula One where they are improving the cars constantly. The difference is every hand biker needs a different bike depending on their residual ability.
I finally returned to Lausitzring in 2003. The idea was to drive the 13 laps that I had been unable to complete because of the crash. I drove out and it was as if I was in the car the day before the accident.
When I first climbed into a go-kart, aged 13, I thought to myself: 'This is what I want to do with my life, and I want to drive F1.'
You have to accept the fact that as long as you are alive, you have something to lose. Living is dangerous.
I bump into a lot of people that have similar problems that I have but less titles or magazines than I have, and they just challenge their adversity with the same tenacity, with the same enthusiasm, with the same will to succeed because life is one and you've got to take advantage.
The accident for sure was one of the most important experiences of my life. During the course of my rehabilitation I had people who were exactly what I needed to be inspired.
As a race car driver, I don't think I will drive forever, because it is not so much a question of being competitive, but of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
My wife has always been positive. In the hospital my brother-in-law was trying to prepare her for the worst, but she said, 'Hold on, I don't want to hear that. He'll be all right. I'm going to ring BMW now and order a car with manual controls because the first thing he'll want to do when he leaves hospital is drive.' She knew her husband!
I am out to prove that there are no obstacles for the disabled.
Proving to my friends, family, and the people that I love that they were wrong - that in spite of my age and my lack of experience, I could change sport and achieve something really special - gives me a lot of satisfaction.
Whether it is a small thing or big one, step-by-step you can make things happen.
I believe the perfect life is the right combination between great things, great success and stupid mistakes or failures.
Disabilities are a very relative condition, it is something that defines a situation, but if you can't jump over the problem then you can certainly go around it.
Everybody is calling me crazy because I want to do the Ironman. I'm not doing it to win it. I'm doing it to finish it. I'm racing myself, not a particular field or group of people.
My never-say-never attitude has helped me a lot. That's why after a short period after the accident, I'm capable of doing almost everything on my own.
When I arrived in Champ Cars, which at the time used to be called Indy Cars and then got renamed CART and then renamed Champ Cars, I was racing against Jimmy Vasser, my team-mate, but more than him, I was racing against Michael Andretti, Emerson Fittapaldi, Al Unser Jr. - guys that had big names.
Today, I don't have any psychological scars, because I am a realist and an optimist. After all, I can't lose my legs twice.
You have to let the car do the job and try to trust it, try to understand what you are doing, try to be smooth, and try to be incredibly smart to set the car up, because that is the most important part.
I'm no different from other drivers - my talent is in my brain, not in my right foot.
Having no legs doesn't mean you can't drive fast and I wasn't going to be happy scoring the odd point. I thought it was possible to win and went for it.
Your trip in this life is very provisional, but the best thing you can do in your life to live in the right way is to take every day as a great opportunity to do what you can and when you're as lucky as I have been in life in getting so much attention and exposure, you learn that you can move mountains with a very small effort.
I feel gifted for having the opportunity to compete in Daytona.
My parents taught me that I could always improve on things.
I try to, pardon the expression, stay with my feet on the ground.
At the time I was asked if I would ever step back in a race car, but what was very important for me was to go into the bathroom and pee on my own, but I could not do that. I had to be helped. That was my number one priority.
I have a little bit of a big head.
If you train hard and work hard eventually you will gain results, and that is the real spirit of life.
Of course, when I can get an Indy Car or Champ Car race on television, I never miss the opportunity.
Daytona has some of the greatest fans in the world and many remember me from some of the things I've done in this wonderful country.
The trust the BMW family puts in me means a lot to me.
My accident was the result of incredible fate, with me spinning in a place I shouldn't have, with a car coming at a speed it shouldn't have, and hitting me with the sharpest and strongest thing that it has, which is the nose, in the most vulnerable part of the car, which is between the side part and the front wheel.
The question I asked when I woke up was not how am I going to live without legs - but how am I going to do all the things I want to do without legs? There was no doubt that I was going to do them, I was just curious to find out how - but I knew I was going to find a way.
That's what I admire the most of my mom, that's she's so tough.
I have always had a very smooth driving style. But when I started competing as a disabled driver, I had to take that even more to the extreme.
For me just the fact to be alive is sufficient motivation to want to improve my life quality.
You only recognize how good something is if you've been through the bad.
First time you step on these new legs, it's bloody hard. It's painful on your pelvic bones. But every day I get more of a feel for where my feet are.
Formula One is not sport. Formula One is only intense competition between teams where the competition is really the research, the technology.
Losing my legs was one of the greatest opportunities of my life.
Never say never, always try to see if there is an opportunity to go around the problem if you can't go across it.
It makes me feel great when I'm driving and talking to my wife, and I look in the mirror, and my son is sleeping in the back.
Once you put everything in the right perspective, even bad times can be an opportunity to refresh your appetite, your desire.
I got into hand-cycling to prove to myself that I could do it and get back into some form of competition, and now it's led to this. If someone had suggested a few years ago that I would be taking it to the Ironman, I would have asked them what they were smoking.
I haven't done any of the things I have done to inspire others, but I am sure that if I am watching my story from the outside I would be joining the club saying, 'Wow, that guy really gets you going.'
Whenever I have a drive or have a dream, I try to achieve it with what I have.
When you find yourself in a certain situation you have to identify where you want to go and focus on what you can achieve on that given day.
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