Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/330779
VOL. 51 ISSUE 24 JUNE 17, 2014 P39 Especially because in creating the Superleggera, the R&D team (led by project leader Eugenio Gh- erardi) have not only brought a fist- ful of new technology to the bike that, according to Domenicali, will in due course find its way on to other more mainstream models in Ducati's lineup, but also because in going for more performance from the ultra short-stroke Superquadro engine, they've also made it a lot easier to ride. Talk about squaring the circle – how clever is that? I've ridden each of the different variants of the Panigale since its debut two years ago, on both road and track, and also tested Carlos Checa's factory F13 Superbike version at Jerez, as well as Nic- colò Canepa's Superstock title runner-up, and they all suffered in one key aspect. That's the lack of the muscular midrange torque that's been the trademark feature of all desmo V-twins for the past four decades. The torque has been traded away in return for greater top-end power obtainable at the higher revs that the Superquadro design is capable of reaching. Well, in creating the 1199 Superleggera, Gherardi & Co. have fixed the Panigale. Okay, okay, I know – it wasn't that bro- ken, but you get the message. The bike awaiting me at Mug- ello turned out to be the best of both worlds – a Ducati V-twin as we've always known it to be, but even better. However, I'll admit that for my first couple of laps I was con- sciously riding the Superleg- gera like I'd had to ride Checa's Superbike last year: I was con- sciously trying to ride it like a four-cylinder Superbike. That meant working the gearbox hard to use a gear lower in turns so as to get the engine revving to fire me out of the exit, then shift- ing up a gear down the next fast- er section before repeating the process under the superlative braking provided by the Brembo brakes with switchable Bosch ABS as stock. Okay, very thrilling, pretty ef- fective – but also hard work and uncharacteristically frenetic for a desmo V-twin, so for my third lap of the 3.259-mile circuit I thought I'd try riding it like a streetbike, just to see what most fortunate customers will experi- ence. I was in for a surprise. Because the Superleggera has so much extra midrange torque compared to previous Panigales that I was able to lap the entire Mugello circuit from the end of the kilometer-long main straight back to the start of it with just three shifts - in spite of the quartet of chicanes and the steep climb up to Arrabbiata 1 & 2. I'd use second gear for San Donato at the end of the straight, short shift into third climbing uphill to Luco – and then I could hold third gear all the way around the rest of the track to the short straight after the Biondetti chicane. Only then did I grab fourth briefly before backshifting to third for the long, long Bucine downhill sweeper on to the main straight. Okay maybe I was being lazy, so after a couple more laps to convince myself this was the real deal (and the onboard lap timer in the DDA/Ducati Data Analyzer race-kit package that's included with the bike, which you set with the flash button as you cross the startline then leave the GPS to trigger each lap, told me I was going faster this way), I stopped at the pits for a half-time debrief. But as I explained what had transpired to Ducati tester Ales- sandro Valia, he started smil-