We had a quick chat with Stefano Strappazzon, the man behind the new V2 missile from Ducati. Here’s what he thought the main points about the new bike are:
“Although the Panigale has a new name we didn’t want to change its approach. Our aim was to improve it in every aspect, to make it very enjoyable on the road and at the same time very intuitive on the track.
“This Panigale has the same electronic strategy as the V4 and V4R, so a very high level of electronic control, which helps performance and also safety. The IMU is the same component. Obviously to fine-tune this control is not easy, but we can make use of a lot of know-how from Ducati Corse.
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“For example the traction control is the same predictive strategy developed in MotoGP, which means that it acts not only instantaneously on the spin [of the rear tyre] but on the variation of spin, so it can predict what is happening.
“This system is faster, torque delivery to the tyre is smoother, pumping of the rear suspension is reduced, and cornering performance and safety are increased.
“We had a big job with the exhaust, which has been developed to comply with Euro5 while keeping its dimensions very small. We worked a lot on noise emission and on making the catalytic converter efficient enough, without compromising performance.
“The exhaust doesn’t reduce power but doesn’t increase it either – the improvement comes from the new injectors and more efficient intake system.”
