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Biaggi still at 80% after Donington injury

Tuesday, 21 July 2009 14:00 GMT
Biaggi still at 80% after Donington injury
Following his crash and contact with another rider in the second race at Donington, Max Biaggi will still not be entirely fully-fit for the upcoming Brno round of the championship this weekend in the Czech Republic. The Aprilia Racing rider, who picked up a small fracture in his right foot, tested at Imola last week, but was unable to make as much progress as he and the team would have liked on a circuit that proved to be difficult for the Italian factory squad. As a result Biaggi approaches this weekend's race, on a circuit where he has always gone well, not in peak physical condition.


WorldSBK.com caught up with Max Biaggi and his physiotherapist Marino Laghi shortly after the Imola tests to analyze the Roman's condition in view of Brno.


"The situation with Max is that he is currently at 80%, the crack in the bone in his right foot is an annoying one and he can feel it because it's never really been fully at rest" declared Laghi. "First there were the tests at Brno, and then Imola. The pain can be felt when the rider presses hard on the pedal in the changes of direction, but we've done a good job and after the tests, when his foot was swelling up visibly, we gave it some massage treatment".


Max Biaggi's record at Brno is an exceptional one, the Italian having won four times in 250 GP, three times in 500 GP and once in World Superbike in 2007 when he was with Alstare Suzuki. Last year he battled hard for the podium in both races on the Sterilgarda Ducati machine, finishing third in the second race.


"I really like the Brno track, I've won there on almost all the bikes with which I've raced" declared Max. "But that doesn't mean that we have an advantage. This year the level of the teams and bikes in SBK has been raised, and by a lot as well, so getting a good result there would mean a lot for us in Aprilia. Next week we'll find out".


In the first Donington race Biaggi battled all the way with Spies to comfortably take the runner-up slot, a result that shows that the Biaggi-Aprilia package has made major progress at this mid-point of the season.


"The race at Donington confirmed that we can go well. I fought with Spies right until the final lap before I had a technical problem that lost me 7 seconds, but in any case I managed to get onto the podium in second place. Imola is one of those circuits that creates a few problems for us however, let's say that tracks where you have to decelerate hard and then accelerate away hard out of slow turns are not the best sort of thing for our package at the moment, but we're working on it and I'm sure we'll get things to improve. I have a lot of confidence in Gigi Dall'Igna, Aprilia's Race Department head, and I have a great opinion of him, I know he can do a lot to make our bike a winning machine. I'm sure we'll make some major steps forward".

What sort of progress did you and Aprilia make in the two-day WSB tests at Imola last week?


"For the moment we haven't made any progress at Imola. The track surface is ruined and full of holes, and we suffered a lot there, but we worked a lot in race configuration and when we go back there we'll know what to do better".