HITTING THE TRACK…

Once Carl had done the sensible bit of the test and worked out how hindered his piles would be after hundreds of miles clocked on the road, the conversation turned to how the SuperSport would cut it on track. Here was a machine said to blur the lines and offer its user the platform to perform at all paces, and I wanted to find out if that was true.

The only problem was that Carl’s test bike had gone back to Ducati, so I had to book a separate machine for some track-themed antics… hence the white paintwork. Having never ridden the previous generation, this machine was completely new territory to me, so I had no foundation for how good or bad it would perform around Cadwell.

I’d seen the spec and heard Carl’s opinions, but I tried to blank out all of that so I could get an earnest gauge of its competence without any preconceptions.

With the bike in the paddock and the tyre warmers roasting, I figured the moment had come to get the L-twin motor up to temperature. I thumbed the starter, fired the bike into life and casually gave it a few revs. What hit me was how lethargically the twin picked up revolutions, but how that translated underload, on the track, when using the engine in anger was still anyone’s guess. The other thing that left we wondering was the bike’s riding position. If I’d have been blindfolded and you’d asked me what I was riding, the ergonomics of the Ducati – with its high ‘bars, low pegs and upright riding position – would have screamed a big naked, not a sportsbike. The high mass of the bike backed up that thought too, hammered home even further by the sizeable tank that seemed to tower above my hips.

This was very much a ‘sit-in’ bike and was a bit unnatural as I pitched into the Hairpin on that first lap and felt the full wrath of the high weight and long wheelbase. It’s probably for those very factors that the Ducati had a natural tendency to push wide into corners. I quickly learned it favoured the fast, flowing bends over the quick direction changes of the Chicane and Hall Bends, where I got a full body workout hustling the this beast about. A V4 Panigale it most certainly was not, but what should I have expected from 210kg sports tourer?

Admittedly, it felt better than a lot of propositions that fit under that umbrella and it seemed to improve with time as I put in the sessions and started to learn its limits. To get the best out of its handling I had to ride smoothly, settling the bike after heavy braking before pitching into corners. The kinder I was to it, the nicer it was to me.

The same went for powering out of bends, where the initial torque when picking up the throttle seemed to squat the rear and make me run wide. This being the case, I should say that the SuperSport did a decent job of carrying corner speed through corners such as Coppice and Charlie’s Exit. It was a bike that required me to think about my riding, with the end result being rewarding.

The tech on the bike worked well on track. The SuperSport hosts the typical plethora of Ducati rider aids that are easy to navigate, and all seemed to do a great job of helping rather than hindering me.

The brakes were pretty exceptional, being both strong and predictable, with a solid feel through the master cylinder. I could really trust in them, without a hint of ABS kicking in. The fuelling was also very good, and while the power of the motor hardly blew me away, I quite enjoyed feeling the boss of the L-twin. There’s nothing intimidating about that motor, with a modest degree of power on tap and a predictable flow of performance throughout the rev range. It did seem to run out of revs sooner than I’d expected, as the colour TFT dash reminded me on too many occasions, when it would ignite into a spectrum of angry colours if I got too close to the limiter (redline is 10,000rpm, and I was typically changing up around 9500 revs).

As you’d expect from a bike costing this much, it has bells and whistles, including a shifter and blipper. They both performed fantastically, and I should also throw praise at the clutch for soaking up the hell I put it through into corners such as Mansfield and Park. It was the consummate sponge for excessive revs and really helped to keep the bike composed with minimal chatter from the rear.

That was just one of the realities I liked about this bike that proved day-long it could be capable and entertaining on track. Sure, it wasn’t perfect and I’d opt for a V2 if I had to make a choice, but that’s not what this test was about. The question was: could the SuperSport do the job on a circuit? My answer is YES. Just don’t go expecting to break any lap records.