SPORTING golden boots and gloves at Monza, the defence of the 2010 World Superbike championship is not going to plan for Max Biaggi as he was penalised in the second race for cutting a corner.
Taking a five second lead in race two, Biaggi was ordered to undertake a ride-through penalty after cutting across the chicane at turn one. Following the penalty the Roman Emperor was relegated to eleventh position, before fighting back to eighth place at the flag.
"At the moment I am feeling only great disappointment, for me and for the entire team. We prepared to the best of our ability and I think we showed that on the track. I have to accept this severe decision, blaming myself for not having been shrewd enough not to have touched that line. Now we have to regroup and focus on the next races. There is still a long season ahead." said Max Biaggi.
With Biaggi prepared to move on from the disappointment of Monza, Gigi Dall'Igna - Aprilia Technical and Sports Director - was more critical of race control: "The judging officials are there to take decisions. It's our job to respect them and so we must accept the penalty which the judges enforced. However, we cannot keep quiet about the fact that, from a strictly sporting point of view, Max drew no time advantage from cutting the turn.
"A problem which forced Max to avoid crashing and return to the track at 330 km/h: a very difficult condition also in trying to avoid a stripe painted on the track. Our disappointment is made even more bitter in consideration of the work that the entire team did in order to perform as best as possible for this round. Now we'll continue to work hard as we have always done, in order to keep this championship open until the end."
However the decision to penalise the reigning champion was defended by Paolo Ciabatti: "We knew that the two chicanes at Monza, paved for track homologation reasons, would be an issue because of riders cutting through after making mistakes on the brakes. That's why we held a briefing on Thursday for the riders from all the classes, to explain the procedure for reentering the track. And Biaggi wasn't there.
“He was outside the area marked with the white lines, as the TV images clearly demonstrated. This was already enough to penalise him, but the data also showed he gained three tenths in the process." said Ciabatti.
The latest penalty at Monza isn't the first time for Biaggi and Aprilia. They were similarly punished in 2009 when the Italian was given a 20 second penalty for cutting the Roggia chicane, losing a third place position.
