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MAX BIAGGI
THE FASTEST ELECTRIC MAN ON EARTH
On 23rd February, the legendary motorcycle racer Max Biaggi was invited to the home of Venturi Group in Monaco to celebrate one of his greatest achievements: setting the world speed record for an electric motorcycle in the ‘less than 300kgs’ category. Over a one-kilometre course on the 22nd November last year, Max Biaggi and the Voxan team unleashed their battery-powered bike on the runway at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida, a place that is used to launching missile-like vehicles. They recorded an official speed of 455.737 km/hr. The former World Superbike champion was riding a Voxan Wattman, a feat of engineering designed by the Voxan Motors motorcycle company. A member of the Venturi Group since it was acquired in 2010, Voxan was able to draw on Venturi’s many years of experience building high performance electric vehicles, such as the
first ever electric sportscar, known as the Fetish. Venturi is focused on pushing the boundaries of zero emissions mobility and its VBB-3 car is still today the world’s fastest ever electric car, having achieved a top speed of 549km/hr in 2019. The Voxan Wattman had already broken 11 world speed records during one day in November 2020, all of them set by Max Biaggi at Châteauroux airfield in France. Every high-speed run is an opportunity for the team to add to the knowledge and experience of what it takes to travel at a velocity far in excess of most aeroplane take-off speeds, and what it takes to stay on the ground. Using the real-world data acquired on the test track, the engineers at Voxan developed the styling of the bike in order to improve its aerodynamics, which would enable it to reach even greater speeds and to operate in various wind conditions.