Bayliss signs on for ASBK

Three-time World Superbike Champion has thrown a grenade into domestic superbike competition with the announcement that he’ll contest the 2018 Yamaha Motor Finance Australian Superbike Championship – as a rider!
Bayliss, who has never won an ASBK championship, will ride a 1299 Panigale for the Desmosport Ducati Team that he founded in 2015 and co-owns. 
The 48-year-old said that thoughts about entering the series initially came up when team rider Callum Spriggs was injured in 2016.
“Initially, I did want to see another young guy on the bike, but after I rode [the 1299 Panigale], I felt that I needed to contest the championship and try and win myself the elusive ASBK title,” Bayliss said.
The 2018 ASBK series will be Bayliss’s first full season of racing in nine years and his first in Aussie Superbikes since 1997. Bayliss retired from international competition at the end of 2008, but rode the Phillip Island WSBK round in 2015 (as a last-minute fill-in for the injured Aruba.it Ducati team’s Davide Giugliano) and has been keeping somewhere close to match fit with his regular ‘2-up’ rides aboard a modern Ducati at various events and race meetings around the country.
“I definitely feel like I have some unfinished business,” Bayliss added. “I have a bit of work to do in terms of fitness, but after testing the bike and running it at the Adelaide Motorsport Festival, I feel I am up to the task."
Bayliss’s first hit-out in the 2018 ASBK series will be on familiar territory at Phillip Island for the Australian round of the World Superbike Championship on 22-25 February.