TROY Bayliss has let John Hopkins use his famous number 21 for the forthcoming World Superbike season, ending the speculaton that he might make a comeback.
Bayliss took his famous number 21 with him when he retired at the end of 2008 giving rise to rumours that he was going to return at one stage. This year Bayliss has been testing Ducati's latest superbike, the 1199 Panigale, adding more fuel to the fire but now it seems that fire's gone out.
Hopkins, who also runs the number 21, asked Bayliss if he could use the number when he ran in World Superbikes with Stiggy Honda, but the Aussie-champ refused. Perhaps it was payback for when Bayliss entered MotoGP in 2003 but had to use the number 12 as Hopkins was running the number 21 with Suzuki.
Bayliss tweeted: "I am happy @JHopper21 will run 21 in WSBK. I only kept it aside in case of comeback. Now I can really forget it."
Now this rumour has been quashed, we need to start another one that involves the Aussie hard-man.
