SUPERMOTO DOES NOT LEAVE ITALY AND HEADS DOWN TO LATINA FOR THE DUNLOP GRAND PRIX OF ITALY

This is a breathless stage of the FIM Supermoto World Championship: there was no rest after the FIM Supermoto of Nations in Bishopscourt and riders went straight to Busca for the sixth round of the Championship.

Now the Supermoto World circus goes deeper into the Italian peninsula and heads to Latina for the seventh and penultimate round of the 2006 season.

The international circuit "Il Sagittario" hosted the final round of the 2005 season and offered the crowd a fantastic show; the FIM Supermoto World Championship is a hardly fought series and last year both S1 and S2 Titles were grasped in the final round.

Both Chambon and Delepine grasped their maiden Supermoto World Title in the Grand Prix of Italy. The Frenchman had a really tight advantage over runner up and countryman Adrien Chareyre, only 3 points; on the other hand Belgian Delepine had a slightly bigger advantage and left Bernd Hiemer 9 points behind.

Bernd is now making up for that and arrives to Latina as Championship leader. KTM’s young gun has just inked a 2 year deal with the factory and will ride a 450cc bike next year; Lazzarini will do the same move but with Yamaha, having signed in Busca last weekend.

Thanks to 2 back to back Moto wins in the last round, Lazzarini is now the closest to Hiemer but the German never missed the red plate this season.

Making up ground in the classification will be a hard work for Ivan but the Italian demonstrated he is a hard worker: last Sunday he had to fight his hardest in both Motos before snatching the lead from Team mate Delepine who is currently third in the Championship.

That battle was one of the best in the history of Supermoto and Lazzarini’s final last corner move on Delepine is already an image in the record books.

British Christian Iddon just lost second place and needs to win in Latina if he wants to have it back. The Husqvarna squad is really fit and it looks like Hiemer will try to avoid risks after he crashed twice in Busca.

Thierry Van den Bosch’s feeling with Aprilia is improving race by race and since Melk he won one Moto per event. The exception was the last event in Busca with the Frenchman winning both Heats: he wants to secure the Title and is speeding up to leave Team mate Jerome Giraudo behind in second place.

Giraudo and VDB are the "winningest" riders of the season with 2 GP wins each; the other 2 rounds were won by Adrien Chareyre, whose brother Thomas is still injured, and Eddy Seel. The latter injured his right hand before the last Grand Prix and will miss also Latina.

On the other hand French youngster Chareyre seems to be back to the main stage. In the Championship he is third with Bolley right behind him in fourth: with Giraudo challenging Van den Bosch and Bolley challenging Chareyre the top 4 seems to be just a French privilege.

From fifth to ninth place there are only 11 points; Italian TM rider Fabio Balducci is currently fifth but Bidart is only 1 point behind.

The French young gun just signed for Team Cross2R and is motivated to show them they selected the right guy.

In such packed group there are also Eddy Seel, Massimo Beltrami and current World Champion Boris Chambon.

For the seventh round of the Championship Latina will host 4 Times World Champion Max Biaggi racing the S2 class. The Roman rider is one of the most popular characters in motorcycling and was born in Rome, less than 100 km away from Latina where he often goes for training.

Max will finally enter the FIM Supermoto World Championship for the first time in his career: road racers like Randy De Puniet and Roberto Locatelli visited Supermoto in Busca but Max Biaggi now stops watching and gets ready to start.

35-year-old Massimiliano "Max" Biaggi won 4 consecutive 250cc World Titles in road racing (from 1994 to 1997) then moved up to the top category: the 500cc. On a Honda machine he surprised the world by winning the race of his top class debut and finished the 1998 season as Mick Doohan’s runner up. He moved to Yamaha in 1999 ending the season with 4th place. He improved in 2000 finishing third then raced the last 500cc season grasping second place. He kept second in 2002: after the first year of the 4 stroke MotoGP era Max left Yamaha and moved back to Honda. Biaggi was third both in 2003 and 2004 then moved to the Honda factory Team in 2005. He closed the season with fifth place.

In his career Max raced 215 Grand Prix and grasped 42 wins; in 2007 he will get back to work with Team Alstare Suzuki Corona Extra in the Superbike World Championship.

Latina is very close (less than 100km) from the Italian Capital, Rome. Latina faces the Tyrrhenian Sea and was a swamp before some colonists from the North-East of the country started a massive drainage work. The city was finally created in 1932 and many original buildings are still there, like the Town Hall and the Palazzo "M".

Right at the boarder of the city there is the sea with many local restaurants facing the beaches.

Information and results on www.supermotoS1.com , the official website of the Supermoto World Championships.

Fans worldwide can watch this and every race in the 2006 FIM Motocross & Supermoto World Championships live and on-demand exclusively on The Moto Channel on MediaZone (moto.MediaZone.com). MediaZone is a leading global online broadcaster specializing in sports, entertainment and international programming.

- Daniele RIZZI, YOUTHSTREAM