Biaggi Re-Ups for Two More Years With Aprilia

Henny Ray Abrams | October 18, 2010

2010 World Superbike Champion Max Biaggi will stay with the company that took him to most of his world titles for the next two years.The Aprilia factory announced that the 39-year-old Roman, who rode an Aprilia to three 250cc World Championships in addition to the WSB title, will ride for the Noale-based concern through the 2012 season. Biaggi rejoined the company in his third year in World Superbike. In 2007 he rode a Suzuki, the next year a Ducati, and in 2009 got on the Aprilia RSV4 Factory. His final 250cc World Championship came aboard a Rothmans Honda in 1997.Following that final 250cc World Championship, Biaggi moved to the 500cc class on a Marlboro Kanemoto Honda NSR500. In one of the most impressive debuts in the senior class, Biaggi scored a runaway victory in the season opener at the Suzuka Circuit in Japan. He went on to finish second in the championship to Mick Doohan. He switched to Yamaha for the next three years, finishing a distant second to Valentino Rossi in 2001, the year of Rossi’s first premier class title. And he stayed with Yamaha in 2002, the first year of the 990cc four-strokes, again finishing second to Rossi. For the final three years of his MotoGP career, he moved to Honda. He finished fifth in 2005 as Nicky Hayden’s Repsol Honda teammate, then spent the next year on hiatus before joining World Superbike in 2007.Armed with arguably the best bike in the field, Biaggi dominated the 2010 championship, winning ten times, including four doubles, plus four other podiums. The World Superbike title was the first for Aprilia, which also won the manufacturers title, the first for an Italian rider and only the second for a non-native English speaker in the 23-year history of the championship. The other was Frenchman Raymond Roche in 1990.”I’m obviously very happy to be continuing this winning adventure in World SBK with Aprilia” Biaggi said in a team press release. “After an exciting but tiring season, after many years of racing and many victories, it was only natural and right to stop and think, to reflect on such an important future commitment. And in my consideration a very decisive factor was, as it was at the beginning of this adventure with Aprilia, the fact that I feel so close to a team and a company which is so capable and so focused on the sports objective.”Now we need to prepare as best as we can for next season. We are well aware that we cannot rest on our laurels and that we will be in all of our rivals’ sights. But now I am also sure that we will be highly motivated at the start of the first race, with a bike which I have brought up and which I did not want to abandon, ready to die hard… extremely hard.”