MORE HYPER MORE NAKED!

It may still be an unfathomable 200+bhp missile, but Ducati says that the Streetfighter V4 now has a gentler side. Shivank heads to Andalucia to find out.

- WORDS SHIVANK BHATT

When you're an eight-year-old kid obsessed with motorcycles, all you dream of is owning a superbike one day. There are no in-betweens and nothing else will do – or so you tell yourself. However, once you become an adult and have enough cash in the coffers to buy a full-blown litre-class ballerina, you quickly come to realise that while you still have the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old, you might not necessarily have the body or flexibility to ride a fully-faired crotch rocket. And that, kids, is precisely why naked motorcycles exist – to keep your childlike excitement alive without crushing your spine into smithereens.

More often than not, though, a naked version of a superbike doesn't possess all the madness of its fully clothed sibling – the whole experience is dialled down to make it more friendly. That's not the case with the new Ducati Streetfighter V4, though, we're told. It is essentially a Panigale V4 minus the slippery bodywork and racy clip-ons, says its maker. It is the closest-to-Panigale version. And to prove their point, Ducati flew us to Andalucia Circuit in Spain, slapped some slick tyres on the new Streetfighter V4, and let us go full send for a whole day.

DRESSED TO THE NINES