Some athletes are multi-talented: which Formula 1 drivers have competed at the Olympic Games off the track and in which disciplines
Whether motorsport in general or even Formula 1 should one day become an Olympic sport has been debated for years. Currently, however, a Formula 1 driver has to try his hand at another sport if he wants to take part in the Olympic Games. And some have already done so in the past
During or after their Grand Prix careers, they have competed in the Summer or Winter Olympics – and the respective results.
This much can be revealed at this point: No one from Formula 1 made it to Olympic champion, but some at least came close.
And there is still one gold medal winner from Formula 1 circles: the former racing driver Alessandro Zanardi, who has an amputated leg, has repeatedly taken part in the Paralympic Games for disabled athletes and has taken first and second place several times in the hand cycle discipline.
While he regularly competed in Formula 1, other Olympians were only guest starters and/or quickly out of the business. Many of them achieved their greatest sporting successes not on the race track, but in other disciplines
A sporting defeat elsewhere was, incidentally, a gain for Formula 1: If Jackie Stewart had been given a place on the British Olympic team for clay pigeon shooting in 1960, he might not have become Formula 1 world champion three times and might not have campaigned so intensively for safety in motorsport.
In fact, in some cases, motor racing takes the staging of the Olympic Games into consideration: In America, for example, racing in NASCAR and IndyCar is suspended for the duration of the competitions.
Formula 1 does not take a break, but still has a certain connection to the Olympic Games: Venues such as the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya in Spain and the Sochi Autodrom in Russia were once built as backdrops for the Olympic Games. Formula 1 only used this infrastructure afterwards.
But it also worked the other way round: Brands Hatch was the venue for (among other things) Zanardi’s handcycle races in 2012 – after it had hosted several British Grands Prix
