Perfection

Story:

Adam Child ‘Chad’

Photography:

Milagro

Idon’t normally get nervous before testing a new bike, but this is something very different. this is ducati’s all-new and frighteningly exotic €100,000 (rs 85 lakh) superleggera. let’s start with some jaw-dropping facts (while keeping in mind that this is a homologated road bike, not an out-and-out race machine). dry weight is 159 kilograms, a huge 16 kg weight saving over the standard v4 Panigale, a class-leading bike in its own right. Peak power is 224 hp in standard road trim, or 234 hp with the supplied race exhaust, which is only around 10hp short of the factory’s world superbike v4-r. the superleggera is actually lighter than the wsbk bike and its huge bi-plane wings create more downforce than even ducati’s current gP20 motogP machine. yet, it has headlights and mirrors and you can ride to the shops on it. despite its v4 stradale motor revving to 16,500 rpm, service intervals are at a perfectly normal 7,500 miles (12,000 kilometres). two mugello lap-times tell the true story. michele Pirro, a moto2 race winner who finished seventh in motogP at mugello in 2019, set a best lap in the italian superbike race of 1.50.3 on his race-prepared v4. meanwhile, alessandro valia, the highly skilled ducati test rider, on the same tyres as Pirro but aboard the superleggera with race kit (152.2 kg, managed 1.52.45. that’s just two seconds in it (on a long lap). and the superleggera was running standard gearing and gearbox, road-compound brake pads and so on. simply by optimizing the gearing for the tuscany track, valia would have shaved off another second a lap.

so, don’t be misled into thinking this is “just” a Panigale with a race pipe and big wings. no, this is an entirely new bike from the ground up.

it is, for starters, the world’s only homologated bike with a carbon chassis (which saves 1.2 kg over the standard bike). Carbon wheels account for another 3.4 kg saving. the swing-arm has less rigidity and more flex and is 11 millimetres longer while making a saving of 0.9 kg. the subframe is 1.2 kg lighter; the bodywork, you guessed, is carbon, too, and 1.1kg lighter.

the list goes on: Öhlins suspension is 0.6 kg lighter courtesy of a titanium rear spring and machined aluminium fork bottoms. the rear sprocket nuts are titanium, the sprocket itself is aluminium, the chain is even lighter, making a total saving in this area of 1.4 kg. the detailing and dedication take your breath away — even the suspension linkages and foot-pegs are machined to be lighter.

then we get to the 1,000-cc stradale v4 taken from the “top-spec” v4-r model, itself an extraordinarily compact and lightweight engine. somehow, though, ducati

engineers shaved 2.8 kg, while the road-legal akrapovi — exhaust is 2.5 kg lighter than the standard v4 item and the full race system, which takes power to 234 hp, saves a whopping six kilos from standard.

all of which brings the superleggera to the scales at 159 kg. even with its homologated power output of 224 hp, that’s enough to give it a record-breaking powerto-weight ratio of 1.41 hp/kg.

we’ve mentioned the weight and the power, but they only tell half the story. we also have to discuss the huge bi-plane wings. i was lucky enough to be invited to bologna, the home of ducati, to take a sneak preview of the new superleggera and chat with the engineers earlier in the year. the distinctive and, i would say, attractive wings are fascinating and directly derived from motogP. back in 2016, there weren’t any restrictions on the size and shape of the wings, which means the gP16, ducati’s last motogP bike before downforce-curbing regulations were introduced, had the most effective wings of all time. in fact, the downforce created by the superleggera is higher than the gP20, a bike that must conform to strict regulations on size.

at 270 km/h, the wings produce 50 kg of downforce, 20 kg more than the current Panigale with its single wing. at 300 km/h that’s up to 61 kg, around the same weight as a typical motogP rider and a colossal amount of downforce — enough to improve stability and reduce wheelies, thus allowing better acceleration, braking, and corner entry.

the electronics package is all-new because simply transferring the electronics from the current Panigale r to the lighter, more powerful, extra downforce superlegerra wouldn’t work. as you’d expect, it gets the full portfolio of goodies: cornering abs, slide control, traction control, anti-wheelie, launch control, an up and down quick-shifter, and changeable engine braking strategies. rider aids can be trimmed and changed to meet personal demands while ducati have also added three additional new rider modes, simply a, b, and sport — two are track-specific, the third for the road.

there’s also a new race gP dash mode, for track use only, which shows your laptimes, splits, and rider aids. Pre-programmed tracks are already saved, like mugello, so you can simply work on improving your lap-time and splits.