Zanardi: I could probably drive the 24-hour race on my own

The 52-year-old from Bologna will fulfil his dream to compete at the legendary endurance race tomorrow when he drives the #24 BMW Team RLL BMW M8 GTE in the GTLM Class, sharing cockpit duties with co-drivers John Edwards, Jesse Krohn and Chaz Mostert.

Zanardi is undaunted by the task ahead and told CNN that he relishes the challenge, "I'm comfortable in the car. I could actually if the rules would allow, probably drive the 24-hour race on my own because physically speaking I feel well. I'm in a condition that is probably the best I've ever had in my in my life."

At Daytona he will be driving the specially adapted car without his prosthetics, "I asked the engineers in Munich to spend some time investigating the possibility to drive the car without my legs. This means that I have to do everything with my hands. I think we identified a set of solutions which enables me to do this."

The victim of a horrific CART accident at Lausitzring in 2001, Zanardi defied death but lost both his legs. His story since then is well chronicled, in a nutshell: in 2004 he returned to touring car racing with BMW, winning four times in 105 WTCC starts. He retired at the end of 2009.

The Italian has also driven a BMW Sauber F1 car and after a few years on the sidelines returned to racing in the Blancpain GT series. Parallel to this, he has enjoyed an exceptional career in para-cycling with four Olympic gold medals and ten World Championship golds for his efforts.

Zanardi's crash nearly two decades ago shocked the world, it was vicious and left him without legs all played out on television, his #66 Mo Nunn Racing Reynard a wreck with Zanardi's limp body strapped to the car were frightful images, once seen never to be forgotten.

He recalled how he lost 70% of his blood and nearly died, "When I woke up in my hospital bed with my wife telling me what happened I just remember thinking: how am I going to live without legs?'I asked myself: how the hell am I going to do all the things I have to do with no legs?"

"People kept asking me would you ever step back into a race car. I said yes but in reality we weren't interested because my main interest was to regain control of my life."

"I couldn't go even to the bathroom on my own. I had to be helped. So I wanted to change that first, but in my mind I clearly knew that and I found an efficient way to reconnect my brain to the rest of the car."

Clearly inspired by and savouring the occasion at Daytona, Zanardi made it clear that there is more to come, "I enjoy being in the middle of my journey much more than being close to the end."

"Right now I'm living this new adventure with BMW in Daytona with this new family and it's a very important and prestigious championship where I have a lot of friends."

"It's fantastic and maybe who knows if this will lead to the new project in the future. I'm a young boy, who knows?" added the Italian hero.