The Zanardi Corkscrew: The 1996 Pass That Renamed a Corner
Welcome to the Happy Hour Racing IndyCar Race Recap. There is no race this week, so instead of going dark we are going back to the single most replayed lap in Laguna Seca history.
The Short Version
On September 8, 1996, a rookie named Alex Zanardi was stuck behind Bryan Herta for most of the IndyCar season finale at Laguna Seca. On the white-flag lap he dove to the inside at the top of the Corkscrew, ran two tires through the dirt, bounced back onto the road and took the win. Fans just call it The Pass. Thirty years later, in September 2026, the track made it permanent and renamed the corner the Zanardi Corkscrew.
Setting the Scene: The 1996 Finale
The Toyota Grand Prix of Monterey was race 16 of 16, 83 laps around the 2.238-mile road course. Two things were live going in. Jimmy Vasser needed a clean day to lock up the PPG Cup for Target Chip Ganassi Racing. And Bryan Herta, in the Team Rahal Reynard-Mercedes, badly wanted his first career win.
Herta did not get the pole either. Zanardi took it away from him on the very last lap of Saturday qualifying. That turned out to be a preview of the whole weekend.
The race itself was close to a parade. Herta led, Zanardi sat behind him, and most of the real passing happened in the pits. Zanardi said later he had been quicker for the last 15 laps and could not do anything with it. The cars were too evenly matched to force a move the normal way.
The Pass
The Corkscrew is two corners, Turn 8 and Turn 8A, dropping about five stories in a few hundred feet. You turn in at the top blind. That is why nobody passes there.
Coming to the white flag, Herta took his usual line into 8A and left the inside open. Zanardi braked late, got alongside, and ran the inside wheels over the curbing and into the dirt. He clipped the apex with two tires off the road, hopped the curb again on the way out, and came back onto the racing surface in the lead. Herta had already started turning in and had to lift when he saw a car that he never expected to see.
25 years ago today. Alex Zanardi made the pass in the corkscrew to win at @WeatherTechRcwy Laguna Seca.
- INDYCAR on NBC (@IndyCaronNBC) September 9, 2021
"Alex caught me totally by surprise," Herta said afterward. "I did not even expect to see him and was very surprised when he came up next to me. I did not even expect him to try. When he did, there was not much I could do."
Zanardi's version was shorter. "It was very risky, but well worth the risk."
Behind them, the title fight settled itself quietly. Vasser picked up debris in Turn 1, lost grip, and got passed by Scott Pruett for third on the same final lap. He still had the championship. Vasser finished the year on 154 points and was the only driver to see the checkered flag in every race that season.
Why It Would Not Count Today
Here is the part worth being honest about. The move was legal in 1996, and it would get a black flag now. Zanardi completed the pass with wheels off the racing surface, and officials responded by stating that any overtake where all four wheels were not on the track would mean handing the position back. Track limits are policed far harder today than they were in the 1990s.
So The Pass sits in an odd place. It is the most famous overtake in the history of the circuit, and the rulebook was rewritten partly because of it. Both things are true.
The Numbers
Zanardi won three races and six poles in that rookie season and finished third in the standings on 130 points, one point behind Michael Andretti. He was Rookie of the Year. It was the start of a run that nobody saw coming.
What Came Next
Zanardi won the title in 1997 with five wins, then won it again in 1998 with seven. He finished his IndyCar career with 15 wins, 10 poles and 28 podiums. Herta got his own ending to the story: at Laguna Seca in 1998 he beat Zanardi by 0.343 seconds for his first career win, on the same piece of road.
In September 2001 Zanardi lost both legs in a crash at EuroSpeedway Lausitz. He came back on hand controls, then took up handcycling and won four Paralympic gold medals across the 2012 and 2016 Games. He died on May 1, 2026, at his home in Italy. He was 59.
The Corner Gets His Name
On Friday, September 4, 2026, during the Laguna Seca race weekend, the track dedicated the corner as the Zanardi Corkscrew. Chip Ganassi, Mike Hull, Max Papis, Scott Dixon, Juan Pablo Montoya and IndyCar president Doug Boles were there. The County of Monterey read an official proclamation and the California State Assembly entered an In Memoriam. The plaque carries one of Zanardi's own lines, "Courage Changes Everything."
Ganassi, who owned the car, called it "quintessential Alex, making the impossible a possibility." Dixon put it the way a driver would. "That is when racing was racing. It was so cool to see somebody have the courage and craziness to pull that off."
There is one more thread. The man Zanardi passed is now a team owner, and his son Colton Herta spent seven seasons in IndyCar before moving to Europe to become Cadillac's Formula 1 test driver for 2026. The family never did get fully clear of that corner.
The Bottom Line
IndyCar is in its offseason until the 2027 opener, so there is time to argue about this one. The Pass is the rare moment that is both the sport's best highlight and the reason a rule exists. You can see the rest of the calendar and the final order on the IndyCar Series schedule and standings.
Your turn: was The Pass the greatest move in IndyCar history, or would you have made Zanardi give the spot back? Tell us in the comments.
IndyCar Gear
If the Herta name is what stuck with you from this one, the Colton Herta No. 26 Gainbridge 1:18 diecast is in stock, and there are only a couple left.
The rest of the open-wheel rack:
- 109th Indianapolis 500 Red Graphic Logo Tee
- Checkered Flag Sports Back Home Again Tee
- Checkered Flag Sports Snake Pit Tee
- IndyCar Checkered Flag Sublimated T-Shirt
Everything open-wheel we carry lives in the IndyCar collection.
