V4 Boom

The DRE Track Days came to India, and Ducati test-rider, Alessandro Valia, set the lap record at the BIC. But, the bigger news has to be Shivank breaking the ‘sound barrier’ on a Panigale V4 at the very same event!

- Shivank Bhatt

291km/h on the back straight! I slammed the front brake way before the braking marker. The Ducati Panigale V4 remained steady, but I couldn’t say the same about myself – I felt as if I needed all the oxygen in the world, and my heart… my heart was ready to explode. Exhilarated, excited and, to be frank, a little afraid, I exclaimed to myself, and not unsurprisingly, ‘Wow!’ After all, it was the fastest that I’ve ever gone on a machine! Sure, I’ve crossed the 250km/h barrier a couple of times on some exotic machines, but the V4 is a completely different monster. The speed build-up is relentless. The way you carry momentum is nothing short of a pantomime – clip the shifter, go full gas and you can sense the front wheel break contact and hop back down with every gear change. There’s absolutely zero power fade even at the top of the rev range. I can’t remember if I’ve experienced something pull as ferociously as this motorcycle. I mean, I’m no fighter plane pilot, but this is probably how Chuck Yeager must have felt after he went supersonic back in the day. What a beast the V4 is!

The interesting thing is that straight-line performance is only a prologue to this exotic tale from Bologna. It’s only when you go around a corner that you realise the