Max Biaggi | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Max Biaggi in 2007
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Nationality |
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Born |
Rome, Italy |
26 June 1971 ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Current team | Aprilia Racing Team | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Bike number | 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Website | max-biaggi.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Massimiliano "Max" Biaggi (Italian pronunciation: [ˈmaks ˈbjaddʒi]; born 26 June 1971 in Rome, Italy) is a former Grand Prix motorcycle road racing World Champion and winner of the 2010 and 2012 World Superbike Championship. Throughout his racing career, he has won the 250cc World Championship four consecutive times, and finished as runner-up in both the 500cc and MotoGP championships. In 2007 he switched to the World Superbike Championship, finishing third overall as a rookie and earned his first Superbike World Championship in 2010 becoming only the 2nd European from outside of the United Kingdom after Raymond Roche to do so. Biaggi announced his retirement from racing on 7 November 2012.
He has been nicknamed 'il Corsaro' ('the Corsair') and 'the Roman Emperor'.
Biaggi was more interested in football as a child. But in 1989, after he was given a motorcycle for his seventeenth birthday, he began his racing career in the 125cc class at age eighteen. In 1990 he won the Italian Sport Production Championship. Following his success in 125cc, Biaggi moved up to the 250cc class.
In 1991, Biaggi finished second behind British rider Woolsey Coulter in the European 250cc championship on an Aprilia RS250, and that same year he finished twenty-seventh in the Grand Prix motorcycle 250cc world championship riding for the same manufacturer. In 1992, Biaggi completed his first entire season in 250cc Grand Prix for Aprilia, and finished the season fifth overall. In that same season he took his first victory in Kyalami, South Africa. The following season, Biaggi joined Honda, and finished fourth in the championship standings, including a single victory in Barcelona. In 1994 he returned to Aprilia and dominated the 250cc Grand Prix class by winning three consecutive world championships in 1994, 1995 and 1996. In 1997, Biaggi again returned to Honda, riding for Erv Kanemoto's team, and won his fourth consecutive title. Following that, he moved up to the 500cc class.