2019 DUCATI PANIGALE V4 R
FIRST IMPRESSION
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high-pitched hollow-sounding roar from
the dual exhausts, which you're very well
aware of when riding the bike, as well as
when standing trackside.
Yet despite breathing through a quar-
tet of huge elliptical throttle bodies (equal
to 56mm in diameter), the desmo V4 R
motor is highly tractable, even friendly, in the way
it makes power. You could honestly imagine riding
this bike to the shops, it pulls so cleanly from low
down, barely off the 1500 rpm idle speed, with
zero transmission snatch and only a little use of
the relatively light action dry slipper clutch. Yes, for
the first time in many years, the trademark Ducati
rattle is back—the clutch plates kissing each other
at low revs, without the oil bath they'd otherwise
be sitting in to quieten them down.
Power builds in a totally linear way, until
just above 8500 rpm—when 80 percent
of maximum torque is already available,
only halfway to the redline—things start to
happen a lot faster. That's when this 'small'
V4 engine sends you catapulting forward
even faster than its big sister does in the V4 S,
while still delivering an enormously broad power
band, which means you end up holding second
and third gear for long stretches of the Jerez track,
where Chaz Davies says he only uses four of the
six gears on his race bike.
The race-pattern (one down, five up) power-
shifter naturally works clutchlessly in both di-
rections, though I had to remember to be quite
The V4 R reminded
Cathcart of John
Kocinski's title-
winning Honda RC45
in terms of stability
and agility in the
corners..
