We’ve just stepped off the impressive 1199 Panigale at Abu Dhabi’s sprawling Yas Marina racing facility, where the desert grit is only just settling after successful conclusion of the world launch for this, Ducati’s important new flagship. The Panigale is proudly named after the Italian region that is Ducati home ground, in Bologna, Italy.The compact, purpose built 1199 looks amongst the most seductive production motorcycles on the planet, its aggressive race-track bred lines and fairing cloaking a bike that pushes the envelope in terms of technology, performance and handling. The sleek 1199 Panigale looks handsome from every angle, it’s taut, fairing skin thoughtfully sculpted with aggressive, flowing lines, and neat detailing. The 1199 rides on darkened, slim spoke alloy rims. Twin silencer boxes exit the fairing belly sides, keeping the motorcycle’s center of gravity close to the deck. The rear cylinder exhaust pipe coils under the split seat, while part of the forward cylinder exhaust pipe peeps through a slit in the fairing. The slim tail-fairing section ends in cleverly hollowed out brake illumination. The Panigale provides all-LED lighting, Ducati typical top drawer grips, switches and levers. Both mirrors are functional, allowing decent rear view.
The 1199 Panigale makes a departure from Ducati’s traditional trellis tubular frame, deploying a monocoque chassis as used on the factory’s MotoGP bike. The engine bolts in as an integral, stressed member of the frame. In the front, adjustable upside down front forks run up to the tastefully cut-out and machined steering clamp, from where the frame reaches to the engine, a massive, alloy single-side swingarm and near horizontal rear suspension.
The 1199 Panigale offers almost every conceivable electronic riding aid, with state-of-the-art Riding Modes controlling the Ducati Traction Control, DTC and ABS brakes. The sporty, full colour, digital instruments are a central command center for this bike, displaying all a rider needs to know, and including Ducati’s latest generation Ducati Data Analyzer, DDA system.
The Panigale 1199 engine is a revolutionary four-stroke, 1198cc, 90 degree L-twin, liquid-cooled engine, named the Superquadro. Radically over-square, bore and stroke measures 112mm x 60.8mm. Power output is an insane on a motorcycle 195bhp delivered at 10750rpm, just under the 11500rpm rev limiter, making this the world’s most powerful twin-cylinder motorcycle engine, with 13.5kgm of peak torque twisted out by the crank at 9000rpm.
Large diameter titanium inlet valves are standard for the Desmodromic valve train, pushed by Polymeric-Like Carbon (PLC) treated, ‘super-finished’ rocker arms.
The camshafts are powered by an unconventional chain and gear drive arrangement, which Ducati found best meet the Superquadro’s demands. The oval throttle body is a massive 67.5mm, and Ride-by-Wire throttle control is standard on this fuel injected motorcycle.
Large diameter gears transmit the 1199’s prodigious power and a wet-type, slipper clutch is standard.
Much of the Superquadro’s engine casing is lightweight magnesium alloy cast. The sturdy, vacuum die-cast crankcases save weight, offering consistent wall thickness and eliminating a joint at the cylinder base otherwise required for the cooling system water-jacket. The Superquadro uses nikasil-coated, aluminium wet-liners inbuilt into its crankcase tops, allowing secure fastening of the cylinder head directly to the crankcase.
We can confirm this Ducati enjoys light clutch-feel at the lever, and the slipper clutch system functions perfectly, never allowing engine deceleration to rob the motorcycle of any stability despite hammering down the gearbox under hard braking. The 1199’s six gears are well spaced, ratios tall enough to allow the powerful new engine to unleash its full potential. Gears shift with a light, crisp and positive feel. The quick shift system works with nothing short of fantastic feedback. Unnatural as this feels, quick up-shifts are perfectly executed under full acceleration by simply pulling up on the gear lever without closing the throttle, or even dabbing the clutch. The clever electronics automatically cut ignition for the fraction taken by the next gear to engage, and takes care of clutching as well. The Panigale twin exhausts sound glorious when giving the bike some whip, loud and bass rich with an exhilarating note that goads you to rev the bike high and hard.
Ducati’s Riding Modes are available, helping deliver all the 1199’s mega power to the tarmac, appropriately mapping the engine to suit individual riding styles in every riding condition.
The 1199 is a blisteringly quick motorcycle that had us routinely hurtling down the long straight at Yas Marina, effortlessly achieving speeds in the vicinity of 250kph, loads of power in reserve! The front wheel obstinately refused to stay firmly grounded in the first three gears, and it takes a good deal of concentration and expert throttle modulation to keep the bike from lunging into power wheelies until post 200kph. There’s nothing short of fearsome performance on tap at all times, in every gear and this clearly isn’t a bike for the faint hearted. The power band is wide, with cracking throttle response, a seamless surge of brute force beginning from just over idle, reaching all the way up to the limiter and never farther away than a flick of the wrist. The 1199 blasts out of corners with gusto, the L-twin making stressful demands from the rear tyre and putting its traction control system to good use. Four cylinder rival supersports bikes (most suffering a capacity handicap to the 1199) could be hard pressed to match the strong low end grunt of this new Superquadro engine.
The lengthy single side swingarm promotes forward weight distribution on the bantam weight, new 1199. This along with the new frame, optimized chassis geometry and top drawer, ultra sticky Pirelli rubber front and rear (bi-compund, with special profile custom tailored to the Panigale) allow Ducati’s latest superbike to out-handle all its predecessors and match even its most seasoned Japanese rivals. The Panigale isn’t a comfortable motorcycle to pilot, its riding position being outright sporty with a track perfect lean forward into the handlebars that puts significant stress on the rider’s wrists and keeps as much rider weight forward as possible. The steering damped, true clip-on handlebars feel reassuringly wide; always a good thing in our book, more so on a powerful motorcycle like this. The Panigale feels so amazingly light you won’t believe this is a full grown 1198cc motorcycle. It all makes for reassuring handling, and amazing track manners.
The ABS brakes work like a treat, with radial mounted calipers biting into the twin 330mm discs in the front. We never felt the need to use the rear brake at all, throughout all our cautious laps learning a windy Yas Marina circuit, with no more than a couple of fingers squeezing the front brake lever being adequate to effectively bring the Panigale down from 200kph plus speeds.
Set for its Indian debut in no more than a few months from now, the 1199 sits at the enviable pinnacle of its segment with little worthy competition. There’s very few chinks in this fiercely quick motorcycle’s armor and even skilled riders could find it a struggle taking this potent machine close to its full capabilities. Don’t expect comfort though, and don’t buy a Panigale if speed, and massive doses of it, aren’t quite your thing. The 1199 Panigale although makes a perfect machine for Indians on the prowl for a supremely talented track day companion, and it doesn’t get any better than this when speaking top class supersports motorcycles.
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