Michel Fabrizio

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Michel Fabrizio

Michel Fabrizio at the 2007 Brands Hatch Superbike World Championship round
Nationality Flag of Italy Italian
Date of birth 17 September 1984
Place of birth Stollberg, Germany
Website michelfabrizio.net
SBK Record
Current team Ducati Xerox Team
Bike number 84
World Championships 0
Race starts 61
Race Wins 0
Podium finishes 7
Pole positions 0
Fastest laps 0
2008 Championship position 8th (87pts)

Michel Fabrizio (born 17 September 1984 in Rome, Italy) is a professional motorcycle road racer. From 2008, he will race alongside Troy Bayliss for Ducati Xerox Team on the new Ducati 1098 in the Superbike World Championship.

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[edit] Early years

Born in Rome, Fabrizio first raced in Minimoto at the age of 6, winning several titles before reaching his teens. He won the Aprilia Challenge in 2001, and raced in the 125 cc World Championship for Gilera in 2002, with little success.

In 2004 he made his first appearance in MotoGP, with the WCM team, failing to complete the season and finishing the season 22nd cc-gp.htm.

In 2005 he raced in the Supersport World Championship, on a factory Honda. He was 5th overall, with 9 top 5 results in the 12 races, although without a win.[1]

[edit] Superbike World Championship

For 2006 Fabrizio was teamed with the veteran Pierfrancesco Chili on privateer Honda machinery. He started his career with 5th and 8th at Qatar.[2] He stood in for Toni Elías on MotoGP Fortuna Honda at Donington Park, but crashed in practice and broke his collarbone.[3] He replaced the injured Elias again for the same team in the 2007 German Grand Prix at Sachsenring on July 15, 2007.

At Brno in the 2006 Superbike World Championship, he started 10th, but chose hard-compound tyres, which remained on the pace as other riders faded. In the first race he passed a fading Andrew Pitt as well as Fonsi Nieto, Troy Corser and Noriyuki Haga in the closing laps to score his first Superbike World Championship podium finish. In race 2 he fared even better - after passing James Toseland for 4th towards the end, he caught the battle for 2nd between Haga and Corser. As Corser attempted a move, Fabrizio dived down the inside of both, slithering and nearly hitting Haga, before edging ahead of them both to the line, immediately improving on his career-best result with a 2nd. His best results of 2007 were two third places, at Assen and Brno. In both seasons he was 11th overall [1]

In 2008 he races alongside Troy Bayliss for Ducati Xerox Team on the new Ducati 1098 [2]]. He came third in race 1 at Philip Island, Australia, despite a huge crash at the original start[3]. At Miller Motorsports Park (on his first ever visit to the USA for any reason) he qualified on the front row and took a pair of 3rd places, despite dropping to 11th on lap 1 of race 1[4]. He had a double-DNF at Assen, shortly before an arm operation [5], and lay 8th overall after 6 rounds.

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