Ex-F1 driver Zanardi moves to hospital closer to home

Former Formula One driver Alex Zanardi’s condition has stabilised allowing the Italian Paralympic icon to move to a hospital closer to his home as he recovers from an horrific road accident.

In a statement, the San Raffaele hospital in Milan said on Saturday the 54-year-old “has been transferred to a hospital in Padua”.

Zanardi has “reached a physical and neurological condition of general stability which has allowed the transfer to another hospital facility and the consequent approach to the family home,” the hospital added.

Zanardi underwent carnio-facial reconstruction after suffering serious head injuries when his handbike crashed into an oncoming truck during a race in Tuscany on June 19.

He was transferred to the Milan hospital on July 24 “in conditions of severe neurological and systemic instability”.

“In the last two months, he has also been able to undertake a path of physical and cognitive rehabilitation,” the hospital added.

Zanardi had both his legs amputated after a motor racing accident in 2001 at the Lausitzring track in Germany, and has since become one of the best-known figures in Paralympic sports.

He won two gold medals at the 2012 London Paralympic Games and four years later won two more in Rio de Janeiro.

Zanardi raced for Jordan, Minardi and Lotus in F1 in the early 1990s before switching to the CART championship in the United States where he was series champion in 1997 and 1998.

He returned to F1 with Williams in 1999 before heading back to CART.