V4 the people!

The Panigale V2 has unquestionable track pedigree, but as a track bike for the road, we find out how it handles the latter

- Dipayan Dutta

There exists in all of us a fragment of ourselves that we keep away from the public eye. Usually, it’s the sum of all our less enviable qualities kept away from plain sight in cold store age. Most people that know you will probably never see this side, but every now and then, someone or (like in this case) something comes along, resonance happens and all those little demons you hid away come out to play. My most recent experience with “the resonance” has been with this Rosso red Ducati V2 you see on these pages. If you think about it with the rational part of your brain, owning a Panigale unless you spend every alternate weekend at the track makes very little sense. It runs hot like hellfire, the ride on the road is like an hour in Guantanamo’s “advanced” interrogation room and the body position would make Baba Ramdev himself cry out for mercy. The problem is, once you are onboard and you’ve thumbed the throttle, the rational part of your brain runs indoors and boards the windows.