Max Biaggi making a comeback!

First Troy Bayliss, and now another world superbike legend is making a comeback in 2015 with Italian Max Biaggi set to compete in upcoming rounds of the championship at Misano (June 19-21) and Sepang (July 31-August 2).

Biaggi will join Leon Haslam and Jordi Torres in the Aprilia Racing Red Devils team, and one of his old MotoGP adversaries, Valentino Rossi, could be on hands to watch him at Misano!

“It will be interesting, for sure!” smiled nine-time world champion Rossi, speaking on the eve of this weekend's Catalunya MotoGP round and whose battles with Biaggi from the early 2000s are cemented in racing folklore. “If you are in good shape, physically and mentally, it is difficult to stop racing. If he is racing again, it is because his lap times are good and he will try to be in front, so it will be interesting to follow on TV or, because it’s Misano, maybe I could go there to watch the race.”

Rossi's MotoGP rivals also endorsed Biaggi's mini comeback.

Jorge Lorenzo said: “Max likes the bike. It was very difficult for him to retire. He loves supermoto and he is always training physically. He is 44 now (Biaggi will celebrate his 44th birthday five days after the Misano races) but he seems very young still—at least his mind is very young and he is still willing to do some tests and races. I think if Bayliss can race and do quite well at Phillip Island, Max can do a good result at Misano.”

Marquez said: “It is good for the Superbike World Championship because, at the end of the day, he is a World Champion, so it will be interesting to see how his level is,” said Marquez, who is the youngest ever rider clinch two consecutive MotoGP titles. “I wish the best to him because he is a great rider and I think, with his riding style, he can be fast.”

Over his six seasons of WSBK from 2007, he collected a total of 21 race victories, 70 podium finishes, five pole positions and 18 fastest laps. In total, the Italian amassed 2066 points.
Since he hung up his crash helmet, Biaggi has been working as a test rider as well as a television commentator for Italian broadcaster Mediaset.

Prior to his world superbike days, he won four consecutive titles in 250cc Grand Prix racing from 1994-1997. He went on to finish runner-up in the 500cc class in 1998 and 2001 and in MotoGP in 2002.

Excluding the very first world superbike race in 1988, the start of 2007 saw Biaggi become only the fourth rider to clinch victory in the opening race of his career, riding the Suzuki GSX-R1000 K7 for Team Alstare; on that occasion, he fought off the attentions of James Toseland (Honda) and Lorenzo Lanzi (Ducati). Biaggi remains the most recent rider to have won the first race he entered the world superbike class.

Remaining in the title fight until the last race meeting, ending 2007 third overall, Biaggi then suffered a difficult 2008 on a satellite Ducati. His first of four seasons with Aprilia came in 2009; it was with the Noale marque with which he re-wrote the history books, becoming the first and so far only Italian to seal the title.

Biaggi becomes the second former world champion to make a return to world superbike this year, after Bayliss rode for Ducati in Australia and Thailand.