Max Biaggi

Max arrived in the world championship in 1992, after a race as wildcard in France, the year before, scoring 13°. The team was the Valesi Team, the motorcycle an Aprilia 250cc and Pierfrancesco Chili was a team mate. Max was wearing a gaudy pink fuchsia helmet and he had little respectful fears. At Mugello he sent his team mate Chili on the floor, and won his first Grand Prix in South Africa, in the last race of the championship. He finished the championship in fifth position, the year after he signed with Honda, running with the colors of Rothmans in Erv Kanemoto Team. He won just one Grand Prix, but he improved his position in championship by one score. The complete transformation occurred in 1994 when he went back to Aprilia. That year started his rule in 250cc, which he dominated till '97, when he was sent away by Aprilia and returned to Honda, always with Kanemoto, confirming his supremacy. The 29 victories, the four world titles, one after the other, are a record that nobody ever reached in the history of motorcycles. They are all wonderful memories for Max but maybe some are more precious than others. The passage to the premier class in 1998 made a stir: always Honda, always Kanemoto. First race, pole position, victory, record lap; only the unforgettable Jarno Saarinen in 1973 had managed in doing the same. Max, that year, maybe could have even won the title if he wasn't disqualified for having ignored a "stop - and - go" in Barcelona, paying for an absurd procedure that has been changed the year after, just after that episode. Anyway he was second, behind Mick Doohan. 1999 was the first of four years with Yamaha, not always good years, studded with disappointments but even great joys and anyway lived with the same determination, passion, abnegation. These were even the years of the most serious accidents, as in the GP of France in '99. But they were also years of important satisfactions, such as the sprint victory on Phillip Island track in 2000 that gave Yamaha the constructors world title. But Max has not got the most desired one, the world championship of the queen class, despite the two second world positions representing the best a Yamaha rider has realized in the last ten years. A year later Max came back on a Honda, with Pons' Camel Pramac Team. Notwithstanding a couple of victories in 2003 and one in 2004, Max had troubles with his non factory RC211V. Third place at the end of both seasons was not his aim. Since he rides in the main category, 2005 was the first time in HRC: Honda finally surrendered and acknowledged Max the factory ride, in Repsol Team with Nicky Hayden. In the new team Max met again with technical chief Erv Kanemoto, good old fellow of great battles. Since the near end of the season, Max was steadily in second place of the championship, but after a couple of good races, something began to go wrong. His last four races were really difficult, and he fell to the fifth position. He was fired by Honda HRC, that order to the other Honda team to not engage him for the 2006 season. After a year of pause, he is going to come back to the races, in fact he signed a contract with the Superbike World Championship Team Suzuki Alstare Corona Extra.