Fabrizio Lai comes in for WSB debut with Echo CRS Honda

Italian Fabrizio Lai is all set to take the place of Broc Parkes in the Echo CRS Honda Team in this weekend's eleventh round of the FIM Superbike World Championship. The 31 year-old from northern Italy will be the second rider to make his World Superbike debut at the Nurburgring this weekend, and will line up on the grid together with KRT's Ian Lowry.

Lai joining the top class is a major promotional boost for the Italian, who raced several times in last year's World Supersport championship for the same team. This year Lai is racing a Honda CBR600 in the Supersport class of the CIV Italian domestic series: for the moment his best result in CIV is seventh at Monza in the second round.

Fabrizio Lai has considerable experience on the world scene: he made his debut in 2001 in 125GP, and over the years scored five podiums, before moving up to 250GP in 2007. Last year he made his debut in production-based racing on the Echo CRS Honda machine.