The Misano (Rimini) round of the SBK championship kicked off with practice yesterday and Max Biaggi, known in his hay day as The Emperor, came back from retirement and crushed all comers with a blistering fastest lap. The 43 year old former two time SBK champion demonstrated that despite years off the bike, reunited with the Aprilia RSV4 he is a force to be reckoned with.
“I am happy to be here” said the Roman, after setting a time of 1:35:38, coming close to the circuit record for superbikes set last year by Kawasaki’s Tom Sykes. “…it is both fun and strange to be here in what is no longer a testing atmosphere but a race situation.” He added that as the weekend progresses that he fully expects the performance of rivals, and his own technical challenges to increase the competition.
Biaggi’s arrival brings an added twist to a 2015 SBK championship in desperate need of excitement. So far the Kawasaki team has utterly dominated proceedings, with Johnathan Rea and Sykes taking the lions share of not only victories but most second places as well. The sole rivals threatening them have been Aprilia rider Leon Haslam, and the factory Ducatis of Chaz Davies and Davide Giugliano.
Biaggi will race only twice, this weekend at Misano and round 10 in Malaysia. It is clear that Piaggio, the parent company of Aprilia, needed some form of good news for 2015, in a series in which they have been dominant in the past few years. Biaggi, a 4 times world champion in 250cc grand prix and longtime rival to Valentino Rossi in MotoGP moved to Superbikes in 2008, where he was a regular top contender and eventually won two SBK world championships.
He retired permanently from world championship competition at the end of 2012.
[…] what most expected and many hoped would be a shock to the system, the arrival from retirement of two time SBK champion Max Biaggi did […]