From the Italian championship to the world championship: Alessandro Delbianco returns to Superbike for the Magny-Cours round, as a replacement for the injured Dominique Aegerter. The Italian rider returns this weekend and will ride for the GRT team, alongside regular Remy Gardner after two years away from the world stage.
Delbianco’s last WorldSBK race was in 2022, when he raced for the Pedercini team. He also competed in the Most round the previous year with the MIE Racing Honda team, while his last season as a full-time rider was in 2019. It wasn’t a particularly easy year for Delbianco, who at the time finished 18th in the overall standings with a ninth place in Race 1 at Donington as his best result.
After his experience in the World Championship, Delbianco moved full-time to the CIV, where he fought for the Italian title on several occasions, coming very close. Fresh from the Mugello race, he now flies to France to return to the World Championship, where he will put the #52 on Aegerter’s R1. The Swiss was injured while training in Austria a few days ago, suffering several fractures that forced him to withdraw from Magny-Cours.
“I am very grateful for this opportunity, but at the same time I want to wish a speedy recovery to Dominique,” said Delbianco. “I will try to enjoy this weekend as much as possible, knowing that it will be a great experience. I also want to thank Filippo and Yamaha for thinking of me as an option for this round, I can’t wait to be on track on Friday morning for the first free practice session.”
Filippo Conti, GRT team manager, also wishes the Swiss rider a speedy recovery and welcomes Delbianco: “We are very sorry for what happened to Dominique, we wish him a speedy recovery, hoping to have him back with us as soon as possible. At the same time, I want to welcome Alessandro”.
“We are happy to offer him this opportunity and we believe that he is a great added value to our team, because we are aware of his talent and his experience on the Yamaha R1, which he has already demonstrated in the Italian championship, where he is having a great season. Furthermore, we are confident that he will have a solid weekend with Remy, we had a good first half of the season and we are happy to face this last part of the championship making progress, so we can’t wait to get back on track”, concludes Conti.
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