Biaggi faces final Euro showdown.

Motorcycle racing can be the toughest of sports - just ask Max Biaggi! The Marlboro Yamaha man has had a magnificent 2001 season, scoring three wins and challenging Valentino Rossi for the last-ever 500 World Championship, but the last two races have not been kind to him.

There's no doubt that Biaggi is super quick at the moment - he has started the last four GPs from pole position - but tumbles at the Czech and Portuguese GPs have left him a long way behind Rossi with five races remaining. Going into August's Czech Grand Prix he trailed Rossi by just ten points, having closed the gap from 46 points. But he slid out of the lead at Brno, bravely remounting to salvage a tenth-place finish.

Then he fell again at Estoril two weeks ago, while going for third, remounting to finish a spirited fifth. Unhurt in the two tumbles, he comes to Valencia determined to win again.

The Roman has impressive end-of-season form on his side (he was the most successful rider in the closing stages of both the 1999 and 2000 series) but he's now a long way behind Rossi after two falls at the last two events consigned him to tenth- and fifth-place finishes.

Valencia could be good for Biaggi, however, for this is where the wheels came off Rossi's title challenge last September, when the Honda rider tumbled out of the race uninjured.

Biaggi, by contrast, had a great weekend, qualifying second, just 0.058 seconds behind eventual World Champion Kenny Roberts. He then led the race, finishing third.

"I like the track, it's tight for a 500 but fun if you ride it right," he explains. "Probably the best thing is the special layout, it's almost like a stadium, the crowd have a great view of the action and you can hear them cheering all the way around the lap. It's like surround sound!"

"Winning the title from here won't be easy, to say the least," admits Biaggi. "But all I can do is stay focused on my job, which is the same as ever, to win races. Maybe we can't catch Rossi but my aim is to finish the season as successfully as I can, I want to keep pushing until the end.

"We tested a few things at Estoril the day after the Portuguese GP and I spoke to the engineers from Yamaha there to see if there is any more we can do to the bike to help me for the final races."

Although he lags 43 points behind Rossi, Biaggi and his team refuse to admit defeat until the title is fully out of reach. "The last two races have been disappointing and frustrating for Max and the whole team," says Marlboro Yamaha Team manager Geoff Crust. "But racing is sometimes like that, you have to soldier on. If you can't take a few bad days, you shouldn't be in this sport.

"We will fight back with the attitude that tomorrow is always another day, that's the way we have to look at it. Yamaha are working in Japan to try and find a little extra for Max. And although 43 points is a big difference at this stage in the championship, bike racing is the most unpredictable of sports. Anything can happen, and usually does!

"The thing is that everything has changed this year, the races are so much faster that you just don't know what's going to happen. Estoril was 42 seconds quicker than last year, Welkom 35 seconds, Suzuka 15 seconds, Jerez 23, Le Mans 16 and Brno 32. Those are huge improvements, so it's impossible to predict a race."