{"id":20760,"date":"2014-01-22T07:08:07","date_gmt":"2014-01-22T12:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/?p=20760"},"modified":"2014-01-22T07:08:07","modified_gmt":"2014-01-22T12:08:07","slug":"role-model-zanardi-returns-to-racing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/formula-1\/role-model-zanardi-returns-to-racing\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Role model&#8217; Zanardi returns to racing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Alex Zanardi will be back under engine power in 2014.<\/p>\n<p>In 2004, three years after losing his legs in a horror Champ Car crash, the former F1 driver defied the odds by racing full-time for BMW in the European touring car championship.<\/p>\n<p>But he then turned to hand cycling, soaring to the top of that sport with gold medals at the 2012 paralympic games in London.<\/p>\n<p>Now, at the age of 47, Zanardi &#8211; who last raced in F1 in 1999 with Williams &#8211; is returning to four wheels once again.<\/p>\n<p>He has been signed to drive a modified BMW in the Blancpain Sprint Series.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Even after leaving the sport in 2009, I was still a racing driver at heart,&#8221; said Zanardi.<\/p>\n<p>BMW motor sport chief Jens Marquardt said: &#8220;From both a human and a sporting aspect, Alex is a role model to all of us.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #888888;\"><em>\u00a9 RIF | GMM<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alex Zanardi will be back under engine power in 2014. In 2004, three years after losing his legs in a horror Champ Car crash, the former F1 driver defied the odds by racing full-time for BMW in the European touring car championship. But he then turned to hand cycling, soaring to the top of that &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[3],"tags":[3484,69,5262,5340,2149,595],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20760"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20760"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20761,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20760\/revisions\/20761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}