I'm a happy guy even without legs. My optimism is what is driving me the most

The courage of Alex Zanardi: Driver who cheated death walks back into the glare with eternal hope intact

On the Friday before the Molson Indy Cart championship race in Toronto, the organisers hold a gala ball. Nothing special, a gathering of sponsors and owners, local names and motor-racing bigwigs, the sort of event which the drivers attend but normally would rather not. Last weekend was different.

For Alex Zanardi, the day had already been an ordeal. Taking the plane from Italy to Heathrow, walking from one end of the airport to the other, a bus to another terminal, a flight to Toronto and then a quick change of clothes and straight to the dinner. The build-up of heat inflames the skin above his artificial legs, and Zanardi admits that his mood sometimes follows the irritation. It was, he said later, the most tiring day he had endured since his accident almost a year ago. But the Italian was to receive an award in honour of Greg Moore, the Canadian Cart driver who was killed at Fontana in October 1999, and nothing was going to stop him making the journey.

Moore was too ferocious a rival and too competitive a man to be a close friend. The pair fought for the title of Rookie of the Year in 1996 and for the championship in the next two years. Zanardi won all three. But they were playing pool in Jimmy Vasser's house in Las Vegas in 1998 and Zanardi had persuaded them to play the Italian version of the game, using hands instead of cues. Of course, Zanardi had won.

Zanardi recalled: "I said, 'Greg, we are going to go now'. He said, 'No, another game'. I said, 'Yeah, but we have to go'. Then he said, 'You're pathetic, bloody Zanardi. Man, I've been here three years, you kick my butt and now you're running away, that's not fair'. I rated Greg as a great driver, someone who never gave up, so for him to say something like that was a great compliment."

In the States, Zanardi's inclusion in that category is unquestioned; in Formula One, the talented Italian proved only what they say about nice guys and losing. But when Zanardi's Honda Reynard slewed straight into the path of Alex Tagliani at the inaugural European Cart race at the Lausitzring in Germany in September last year, there was no divide. The force of the impact split Zanardi's car in half and cast the biggest cloud over motor racing since the death of Ayrton Senna.

"You have accidents, yes," said Johnny Herbert, a former team-mate. "But you don't expect something this gruesome." Zanardi survived, after being read the last rites, but at a shattering cost. A concert pianist without fingers; a racing driver with no legs. Many drivers would consider death the preferable option.

Ten days ago, the day after the gala dinner, Zanardi gave one of the most remarkable press conferences in the history of a sport routinely decorated with courage and tragedy. He talked with utter frankness about what he calls his "terrible circumstances", about the love of his family, about his son Niccolo, and of how his wife, Daniella, in the immediate aftermath of the accident when her husband's life was still in the balance, had called BMW to arrange delivery of a car with manual controls. "When he wakes up, he will want to drive, I know," she said. He talked too about what kept him going.

"You know, I'm a happy guy even without legs," he said. "I would be happier with my legs, but my optimism is what is driving me the most. The hope that I would walk again on a pair of prosthetic legs, that was really driving me a lot, and, to a certain extent, ignorance. I thought I would be able to do a lot of things on these legs that eventually I found out I can't do.

"But I was very proud when I was able to take my son to the beach to throw stones in the water. That was a very, very special moment, just me and him together. I still have some moments where I'm not as much fun to be around as I used to be, a little grumpy.

"I came to understand that my level of amputation is the worst you can have. It's both legs and both legs above the knee. If you have only one leg, you've got something to compensate for what you are missing on the other side. If I had the knee, it would be much easier. It's almost like you have your own leg. Think about if you walk with a ski boot. You don't have the heel movement, right? But after a few steps you adapt and, with your knee, you do the rest. That's difficult for me. My balance is really only based on the width and the length of the foot itself and I have to learn to stay on that little platform and hold myself up with that.

"Fortunately, I can get better, but there's always going to be a limit to the way I can walk. I will never be able to bound up the stairs putting one leg in front of the other. It's a cause of pride that at the rehabilitation centre there are people who did not achieve in 20 years what I have managed to do in six months. Some people just use their legs to improve their look, but spend most of the time in a wheelchair. Fortunately, that's not me."

Zanardi views the human leg like a car suspension, with a spring and a shock absorber, and 20 years as a driver makes him an acute technical analyst. "I do a lot of the tuning myself. I go around with a 4mm screw in my bag and all of the spaces and everything. It's what I've been doing as a job for the past 20 years, so it only takes me five minutes in the morning to put my legs on.

"After a middle point, I was really depressed because when I put on these prosthetic legs, the pain was terrible. Every step was a nightmare and I was sweating like a pig to get only a short distance. But it's much better now and every day I make small improvements. I am able to travel, I am able to go on my boat like I did last week, and I'm not so far off being able to chase the kids now."

To ease life at home, Zanardi has bought a four-wheel bike, but it was a poignant moment when, four years after one of his more spectacular victories over the same roads, he took to the streets of Toronto in a car with hand controls. "Sometime I brake thinking I'm pushing the throttle," he laughs. "That's not a problem. It's a bigger problem when I accelerate thinking I'm braking. So I'm still driving slowly. So if you see a green Chevy Monte Carlo going around, be careful. That's me."

At the height of his dominance of Cart racing, Zanardi won 12 races in two seasons and became only the third driver to win successive championships, enough memories to fill the trophy cabinet in his billiard room back in Italy. But he misses the racing more now, the winning most of all. "When I was on the podium on a Sunday, I was always thinking of the following race. I was so much into the mission that I did not have time to enjoy it, now I realise how great are the memories I have. I watch that Laguna Seca race in 1996 and Long Beach '98, Toronto '98 and I just feel very proud because at the time they were just race wins. In life you always want what you don't have."

Zanardi has not ruled out racing again once he has got the hang of these new legs. He is 35, the eternal optimist, always looking at what is possible, not what is impossible. Zanardi's final duty in Toronto was to wave the chequered flag. But everybody at the circuit and in the sport knew the true identity of the winner.