V For Venturesome

We ride the Panigale V4 S, Ducati’s new superbike, at the Sepang International Circuit to figure out how to transmit 211bhp onto the race track.

- Arup Das

With over five-and-a-half hours to kill before my flight to Kuala Lumpur, numbers like 4-cylinder engine, 1,103cc, 211bhp, 124Nm of torque and a mere 195kgs of weight kept playing on my mind as I impatiently waited to board the flight. But it’s not all that was on my mind. I was also wondering if Ducati has raised the benchmark to a stratospheric level with the Panigale V4, or if they’ve simply gone insane. The only way to know for sure was to saddle up and test the beast. But, until then, all I could do was wait impatiently. What can I say, patience isn’t one of my strong suits! It all began when Ducati invited us to the Sepang International Circuit – which also plays host to the MotoGP Malaysian Grand Prix – to make sure that we experience the V4 properly.

The big, bad wolf

The 4-cylinder Desmosedici Stradale engine has been developed in close collaboration with Ducati Corse – their MotoGP team, and the V4 is the closest to what the 3-time world champion Jorge Lorenzo and Andrea Dovizioso ride. In case you don’t follow MotoGP and none of this is very meaningful to you, perhaps this will grab your attention – the new 211bhp Panigale is the world’s most powerful production-ready motorcycle, which basically means that you can ride it both in the city and on the racetrack.