Pre-Season Work Makes Baba A Title Contender Again!

LAUSANNE, Switzerland – 19th of March, 2007 – The days of the “mild mannered” and “gentleman” racer personality of one Massimo Roggiero are now officially over!

 The talented driver from Northern Italy is focusing not only on his own future as a driver, but one as a boat builder, as he continues to do double duty preparing for the upcoming 2007 U.I.M. F1 World Championship for power boating in his race shop in Busto Arisizio near Milan’s Melpensa airport on the northwest side of the city.

The 41 year-old who is starting his 13th season in F1 is a changed man. He has opened his eyes to the fact that he has a talent for boat building and a lot of other drivers are taking notice. One in particular is the defending World Champion Scott Gillman of the Emirates Team who tried his boat a year ago at a critical time of the season on his way to his 4th driver’s championship in his 10th season on the tour.

 Another convert to the BABA designed craft is talented Finnish racer Sami Selio who is beginning his third season running the craft and who has been at the race complex in Italy fine tuning his boat with the newly mandated crash box being placed on the 2007 hull. Sami, beginning his 10th year, also hopes this is all he needs for gaining his first World Championship starting at the season’s first event at the Grand Prix of Portugal at Portimao the weekend of the 12th and 13th of May.

“Our client list is continually growing and I am happy about this,” said Massimo. “It shows that the design works and this makes me feel good about the direction we are going with the boat. Since our design is a bit different than a lot of the other hulls, I think the crash boxes that are being placed on the boat for ’07 will be less obtrusive for our boat than for others. Hopefully testing will prove this out for us shortly.”

Roggiero, who missed 1/3 of the races in 2006, still, was able to finish 13th overall in the Stasdings despite finishing just one race, that at Como, Italy where he took a 3rd place and reached the podium for the 18th time in his career to go along with 3 career victories.

“I think everything is going along nicely, stated Roggiero. “We were happy to have stayed out of all the political mess this past winter which has now been cleared up and we look forward to a good season. I am ready to start my second year with the Qatar Team and we have a strong line-up with my teammate Jay Price from America joining me again. Also, the addition of Pelle Larsson coming to the Qatar Team as the Team Manager is big news and this could turn out to be THE team to beat in 2007. We’re hoping so. We’ll see.”

Massimo continues to eye customers around the world with his boats that are built for F1, ChampBoat and F2000. He’s hoping to continue to grow as a boat builder along with his driving and go for the title this season and become the 4th different Italian to hold the crown at season’s end.
He won’t be short of his goal from the lack of a hard off-season dedication to making things go right for his boats and his racing career as well.

Buona Fortuna, Massimo.