Alex Tagliani

Infobox racing driver
name = Alex Tagliani


pixels =
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nationality = CAN
date of birth =
place of birth =
related to =
current series = IRL IndyCar Series
first year = 2008
current team = Conquest Racing
car number = 36
former teams = Walker Racing
starts = 3
wins = 0
poles = 0
fastest laps = 0
best finish = 34th
year = 2008Infobox racing driver
last series = Champ Car World Series
years active = 2000-2007
teams = RSports Racing
Team Australia
Rocketsports Racing
Forsythe Championship Racing
starts = 132
wins = 1
podium finishes = 14
poles = 4
fastest laps =
best finish = 7th
year = 2004, 2005
prev series =
prev series years =
titles =
title years =
awards =
award years =

Alexandre Tagliani (born October 18 1972) is an Italian Canadian auto racing driver from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He is currently the driver of the #36 Sangari Conquest Racing car in the IndyCar Series and #7 Tide/Wal-Mart Ford in the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series.

He is most known for his Champ Car career. He raced in the series since 2000, when it was still known as CART, until its demise in 2007. He was signed by Forsythe Racing for the 2000 season replacing Greg Moore.

He came close to obtaining his first victory in only his third start, after taking pole position at Brazil and leading most of the race, but spun out from the lead with nine laps to go.

In 2001, he had the misfortune of being involved in the collision with Alex Zanardi which caused Zanardi's legs to be amputated.

He remained at Forsythe until the end of 2002, when he was substituted by Paul Tracy. He found a job with the Rocketsports team in 2003, and remained there for the 2004 season, in which he earned his first and only Champ Car victory at Road America.

In 2005 he joined Team Australia, which was essentially a rebranding of Derrick Walker's long-running team with the support of Australian businessman Craig Gore, and finished 7th in the championship despite lacking a race engineer. 7th would equal the best of his 3 top-10 championship finishes.

He returned to Rocketsports for the 2007 season, and finished 10th in points with a best finish of 4th in the first race of the season. He earned four pole positions during his Champ Car career.

In 2008, after the Rocketsports team decided not to take part in the IndyCar Series, Tagliani made the transition to stock cars and began racing in the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series. He also drove for Conquest Racing in the IndyCar Series Detroit Grand Prix, replacing the injured Enrique Bernoldi. Tagliani continued in the seat for the last two races of the season.

Conquest Racing has announced that Tagliani will return as a full-time driver in 2009. cite news
url=http://www.conquestracing.com/documents/8002-Conquest-IRL-9-4-08.pdf
title=Conquest Racing 2009
publisher=conquestracing.com
date=2008-09-04
accessdate=2008-09-20]

Motorsports Career Results

Champ Car

() (Races in bold indicate pole position, races in "italics" indicate fastest race lap)

ee also

List of Canadians in Champ Car

External links

* [http://www.tagliani.com Official Site]
* [http://teamaustraliamotorsport.com Team Australia Official Site]