WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH THE PANIGALE V4R’S REV LIMIT?

After Jonathan Rea’s recent domination of WSB racing, the rule makers devised a way of leveling the field through rev limit caps to ensure close racing. Each motorcycle has a homologated rev limit, which is based on the road bike’s rev limit. This can then be altered during the season by the rule makers depending on a bike’s success in increments of 250rpm, with successful teams losing revs and therefore, theoretically, performance. After being capped from 14,600rpm to 14,100rpm last year following Jonathan Rea’s dominance, Kawasaki thought they were being clever this year when they gave the 2019 Ninja ZX-10RR titanium conrods to allow the road bike to push its rev limit up 600rpm so the race team could begin the season with a 14,600rpm limit. However, Ducati have been even more clever…

In road trim, the Panigale V4R only has its 16,500rpm rev limit in top gear. While this may seem strange, actually it is very smart. Even for a V4 with a desmo valve system, 16,500rpm puts a heck of a strain on a motor and what you don’t want as a manufacturer is road bikes going pop. If you allow a bike to rev to 16,500rpm in all gears, you can guarantee that road riders will try bouncing it off the limiter in the first few gears, which could lead to failures. So using electronics, Ducati have neutered the V4R’s motor so that it can only rev out in top gear (thus ensuring road riders won’t get near it) and in lower gears the revs are cut short at 16,000rpm. By doing this the V4R has a homologated genuine rev limit of 16,350rpm, which racers will have full access to in every gear through revised electronics, which is why Ducati could start the 2019 WSB title with a lovely high rev limit… in readiness for it being capped owing to its anticipated success. Smart cookies, eh!