DUCATI V4S PANIGALE
They said giant leaps in performance were yesterday’s news. They were wrong.
UP AHEAD IS a fast kink that flicks right and then the road opens up onto a half mile straight. No junctions, no dips, maybe I’ll be able to fully open the throttle for the first time there… Tipping into the right is tricky because of the timing – you need to wait and wait until you see the corner open up, then fling the bike in for a safe late apex. It’s third-gear fast, and a handful on big bikes – on my 2015 ZX-10R it was a buttockclencher. It isn’t on this though – the V4S swoops through with startling ease, responding to the slightest nudge on the bars and then carving the perfect line as the V4 goes about its raucous business. God this bike makes you feel good. The problem now is the one I’ve had all morning. The thrust from small throttle openings is so great, so relentless and so easy to tap into that even though I’m not trying, the V4 is already going properly fast. And if I open the throttle fully now… Oh well. Here’s hoping there are no police helicopters about. From 6000 to 10,000rpm the V4 kicks like a big Ducati V-twin, which is, for those not lucky enough to ride one, brutally fantastic. The front wheel floats smoothly up in third gear, despite the counter-rotating crankshaft’s efforts to stop it, and there’s that Ducati booming cacophony. Although we’re now shifting, all seems well. I can cope with this. But instead of tailing off at as a 1299 Panigale would, the V4 shifts from a hollow WSB drone to an irate Motogp shriek and goes berserk. This is the first road bike I’ve ridden where the acceleration is so savage that just holding on becomes a real issue. If you’ve ever tried riding a decent motocross bike flat-out you’ll know the feeling – that rising panic as your forearms inform you they’re not tolerating this nonsense anymore and you fleetingly imagine gripping the
tank with your knees while your torso flails about in the wind like a bin liner. Using full throttle on any litre sportsbike is a thrillingly daft proposition, but the Panigale takes matters to a new level of adrenaline-fuelled wrong. But here’s the thing: it’s actually a hugely enjoyable road bike because you can get everything you need below the 10,000rpm nutterzone – that can be tucked away safely, to be deployed on race tracks, autobahns and pub mates. And the suspension works in the real world too. Set in Street mode, the semi-active forks and shock are remarkably civilised. They’re firm, but not unpleasantly so, and will let you rattle down B-roads without punishing your wrists and back. As ever with the latest semi-active set-ups, they feel almost indistinguishable from high quality normal suspension – it’s only the way the forks firm-up under hard braking that’s noticeably different. So what’s the advantage? Well, if you toggle into Sport mode (two clicks on button on left bar, done on the go) things firm up and you’re all set for a smooth A-road or an intermediate trackday session. Comedically, the dash describes the power in Street and Sport as ‘medium’ which is some Ducati joker’s way of describing 214bhp, but with a softer throttle response than Race mode. Besides its banzai top-end and the deceptive ease with which you can ride very, very fast, the other unique quality of the V4S is the way the engine feels and sounds. To illustrate, here’s an admission: when I first picked up the V4S from Bike’s HQ, I stopped before I’d left the car park and peered down at the flank of the bike to check the name. I honestly thought I’d ridden out on a Panigale 959 Corse which was also in the shed. The sound and feel of the V4 is so much like a Ducati twin at low revs it’s astonishing. When you start it, there’s that same wheezy moment when you wonder if the battery is up to the job of turning over the engine (the V4 might have four little pistons, but it has a monster compression ratio of 14:1 – the tuned-to-the-hilt 1299 twin is only 12.6:1). And when the V4 catches there’s the familiar acoustic theatre of off-beat thuds and higher pitched rattles with the booming undertow of Ducati’s barely-legal exhaust. Shut your eyes and it’s a twin, albeit one with a faster idle than normal. And then as I rode across the car park, the vibrations blurred the mirrors and the engine felt on the brink of throwing a low-rev lurchy tantrum – feeling just like it had two massive pistons being kept in check by clever electronics. When I gripped my knees against the tank and realised they almost touched because it’s so slim, I just had to check the sticker. Part of the problem was that I thought a V4 was a V4. Surely it would feel like a Honda VFR400, RC30, RC45…? They all share a gurgly smoothness that builds like a wave of syrup until you realise you’ve broken the TT lap record or you’re nipping to the shops in flip-flops at 110mph. The new Ducati doesn’t feel like that at all. It shudders and grumbles like Chaz Davies’ WSB bike at low revs, and when you blip it from idle it barks like a feisty rottweiler. All this is down to the crank pins which are offset by 70-degrees rather than 180-degrees like a Honda V4, which allows the
cylinders to fire more or less in pairs rather than evenly – imagine usend two V-twins side-by-side firing at almost the same time. Ducati the same offset on their Motogp bike to get a ‘big bang’ effect to Price help traction, but on the road bike the effect is more dramatic because it makes it sound and feel like a bona fide twin. As you reach 3500rpm, it smooths out but that off-kilter rumble is always there, blurring the mirrors enough to be irritating, constantly reminding you you’re riding something special. In two weeks, I never tired of it, partly because almost everything else is so damn slick. The throttle response, for example, is a superb balance between immediate thrust and smooth take-up that lets you trickle smoothly through town or accelerate calmly on cold, greasy roundabouts (despite the stock Pirelli Super Corsas not liking the cold at all). The TFT dash is clear and logical, the screen is narrow but high, so gives half-decent protection from the rain, and the fancy Brembo Stylema calipers manage to combine massive power with plenty of feel. For such a weapons-grade headcase, it’s an easy bike to live with. There are niggles for the road rider though. The rear two cylinders and shrouded exhaust kick out a lot of heat, which roasts your thighs at traffic lights, the fuel light comes on at just 100 miles, giving you another 35 before running out (I got 38mpg commuting, low 30s on blasts), the sidestand is a pig to find until you memorise where it is (you can’t see it from the saddle), and finding neutral is almost impossible until the engine warms up. There are some weirdnesses too. In the wet, the aerodynamics fire spray everywhere – swirling it up and under the screen, coating the dash and the inside of the screen in road crud. From the rear, the two holes in the tail section suck spray up onto the rider’s back, plastering you or your rucksack in grot. Also, if the rain is heavy enough, it collects in the bellypan somewhere and drips onto the exhaust so when you stop the whole bike steams. Odd. But does this matter? Not really. On the launch, Bike’s tame GP rider James Haydon called the new V4 engine a masterpiece and we thought he might be getting carried away. But he wasn’t and you could apply that to the whole bike. It really is that good.