Troy Bayliss will rac🐽e with his iconic #21 plate when he makes his surprise return to the World Superbike Championship at Phillip Island.

The three-tim🧸e world champion will make a spectacular comeback to the series at Phillip Island this weekend after putting himself forward to replace the injured Davide Giugli💎ano on the Aruba.it Ducati Panigale R.

It will be his first competitive international race since Portimao 2008, when h♏e retired shortly after picking up his third world title. Since then, Bayliss has worked as a Ducati ambassador and has completed numerous testing exercises, though this will🌺 represent an entirely new challenge in terms of regulations and even recent mileage having not done any pre-season testing.

Nonetheless, when Bayliss does return he will be able to use his famed '21' plate on the bike, while Australian fa🀅ns will no doubt be eager to see how he performs against the latest crop of riders.

As a reference, the only riders on the grid during that race weekend seven years ago that are competing this weekend are Leon Haslam and Jonathan Rea. Even then,⛄ the former was a wild-card on the BSB HM Plant Honda and the latter was making his WSBK debut for Ten Kate Hon🎐da.