NOVEMBER 16, 2003

A Ferrari test drive for Zanardi?

Ferrari driver Rubens Barrichello says he is going to help Alex Zanardi to get a test drive with the Ferrari F1 team at Fiorano. Zanardi was a Formula 1 driver with various teams in the early 1990s before going to America and becoming a big star in CART. He returned to F1 with Williams in 1999 but it was not a success and in 2001 Zanardi revived his CART career until an accident at the Lausitzring resulted in his losing both legs.

Refusing to be beaten by his handicap, Zanardi came back to racing this year, lapping the Lausitzring in May at racing speeds in a CART car and then making his European Touring Car Championship debut at Monza in October. He finished seventh in a specially-modified BMW.

Such a test would not be the first because back in 1992 the Ferrari team gave Sandro Nannini a run at Fiorano, two years after his right arm was severed in a helicopter accident. Nannini underwent an 11-hour operation in Rome during which his arm was sewn back on by microsurgeons. He completed 38 laps at Fiorano in a specially-modified Ferrari F92A.

Nannini - who competed in 77 Grands Prix between 1985 and 1990, being credited with victory in the 1989 Japanese GP - went on to built himself a career in touring car racing with Alfa Romeo factory team.