Ducati Panigale V2 World Premier

If you're here for all of the details on the 2020 Panigale V2, you're in the right place. So here's a quick rundown on the new for 2020 Panigale V2. 155 horsepower, 955cc Superquadro L-Twin. This is Ducati doing what they do very, very well. They make and perfect their premier-class superbike, in this case the V4, and then they do a middleweight version. I can remember my first month as the editor at Superbike Magazine when I had my pick of any bike in the market. You're the editor of a sports bike mag, everyone wants to be your friend, and it was the 848 Evo that I went for. This middleweight version of any of the superbikes that Ducati does always grabs attention. So years ago at the launch of 899 in Imola, I asked a question about why a double-sided swingarm, and the answer was a mix of marketing and mystical look, an eagle of a hoodwink, really. They said they put a double-sided swinging arm on that bike in order to make it easy for Japanese supersport owners to look at a new 899 Ducati and see some kind of familiarity, rather than a beautiful single-sided swingarm. I'm kind of reading between the lines and saying that both marketing, finance, and engineering departments all made their pitch to Claudio Dominicali about what would be best for the bike, and then he decided what to go for. This bike is a move back to a single-sided swingarm. It's very, very pretty. It's attached to a Sachs monoshock at the back and Showa big-piston forks at the front. TFT dash, stacks of rider modes, a new DTC Evo 2 system, so the traction control system has been refined, and there's stuff that I don't quite understand about the rhythm of traction control algorithms and why that band has been narrowed in order to make our ride safer when we're on the road and on the track. It's super clever stuff, but more importantly, boy oh boy, this bike is pretty. Prize for Panigale V2 is $14,995, and you can look forward to a full review from us at the end of November, where we'll be off to Jerez to go and ride it. So this is Stefano Tarabuzzi. Stefano, nice to meet you. That's my pleasure. Thanks for the time. Thanks for the conversation. I'm going to ask a couple of questions about V2 Panigale, and hopefully you can educate me and the viewers along the way. 150 to 160 horsepower. Why is this bike not a V4? Why V2? In this range of performance, I mean around 150 horsepower, the best compromise between weight, dimension, torque, curve, and performance is the V2. So if you want to stay in this range of power, then you have to get into the V2. Then if you want to go over, if you want to go beyond that level of horsepower, then you need to move to the next step. And that's what we did two years ago with the V4, because we wanted to go over this level of performance and the choice was mandatory. And so we moved to the V4. But in this level, the V2 is absolutely a great engine and it has the best level of compromise between all the different elements. Value for money. Because in the end, this is another very important element, for example, for riders who want to enter for the first time the world of a racetrack, but with a bike that doesn't cost too much, but that can be also usable on the road with no problem, with an acceptable level of comfort, for example. And service intervals that are very high, so the cost of maintenance are not exaggerated. So we think that this is really the perfect bike for that kind of customer. And also interesting for me, and a point that I was discussing earlier, is the shift back to single-sided swingarm from double-sided and also the exhaust or muffler design changes that you have made. With this new Panigale V2, we really wanted to fix something that was not so appreciated by many customers in the previous 959 Panigale. So we have the double-sided swingarm, we have the big side muffler. We can say ugly, can we say ugly? A little bit. We will say something like that. Ok, a little bit. Now we have worked a lot because it has been a long work for our guys in Bologna in order to develop a small muffler that can fit below the engine and that can be also Euro 5 approved from the top, that is the development of our MotoGP and Superbike bikes, and this is the top. Then we get the technology, all the things that we learn from those bikes, then we move these learnings to our top Superbike, the big displacement V4 in this case, and then down to the mid-displacement bike. This is what happened because this bike gets the aerodynamics from the V4 of last year. So this is one of the great improvements in terms of aerodynamics. Then it gets all the electronics package of the V4, DTC Evo 2, DQS Evo 2, so it gets all the electronics package, except the slight control but it's something that with this level of power is not so necessary. But we get this complete electronics package from the V4 and also in terms of setting of the bike, adjustment of the suspension, we put all the knowledge that we developed with the V4 last year into this V2. So it's not just a pretty face. No, it's not just a pretty face, absolutely. Everything going on. Also in terms of, for example, of human-machine interface. The TFT display is completely new and it gets the same interface of the V4. So the same logics of working of the V4, it is very intuitive, it is perfect also for professional use on a racetrack, for example. And also when the customer steps from this one to that one, there's familiarity for them. Absolutely. Because in our idea, someone wants to start his experience on the racetrack, this is the perfect bike. It starts with this bike, then when it gets faster and faster and we get much more confident with horsepower, with the racetrack and so on, then the second step obviously is to move to the V4. Because when the performance of this bike is not anymore enough, then it can move there and there the level of performance is much, much higher. So it was only a few years ago that a 1098 or a 999 was making similar power. They've come a long way in a short space of time. This is really the magic of electronics. Some people out there, they say, oh, I don't want electronics in my bike. Well, I think that electronics saved our lives many times. So it is fundamental and also this one, not only the V4, but also a bike of this level of performance cannot be ridden without electronics in safety. So I really think that this is really the miracle of electronics and we think that we have to be very grateful to the developers of electronics. We invest a lot of money, resources and time for the development of electronics, but that's because we think it's really fundamental for a bike that aims to get the maximum performance, absolutely. Perfect. Well, look, I look forward to seeing you in Jerez. In EICMA. Well, in Jerez. We'll come and ride it. We'll come and have a ride. OK. Thanks very much. Ciao.