Copyright 2002, Roadracing World Publishing, Inc.

By David Swarts

Former World Superbike Champion Troy Bayliss will not get to run #21 in MotoGP in 2003. The #21 currently belongs to Suzuki’s John Hopkins.

Bayliss explained the situation in his online diary entry for today, on www.ducati.com, writing, “if anyone’s looking for me in the paddock, you’d better look for #12. I wanted to keep #21 but can you imagine someone coming into Superbike and asking me to give up #21? So next year I’m #12 and in the last three years I’ve been, #1, #2 and #21, so it’s just 21 backwards. I sort of wanted #32 as I won the British Championship with that, but anyway, I’m #12 from now on. When it comes down to it, it’s only really a number, it’s not that important, but I reckon it’ll look pretty good, just look for the red bike with #12 on it going round and round in circles… that’ll be me.”