Ducati Users Club of Western Canada Blog

When a motor­cy­cle com­pany starts with a clean-sheet design, there are so many ways to go wrong. Often it’s best to wait for Ver­sion 2.0. But Ducati has knocked one out of the park with its sen­sa­tional new 1199 Pani­gale, the first ground-up mass-production model from Ducati since the 1979 Pantah.

While a defin­i­tive ver­dict will have to wait until we test the 1199 on home soil, our short time aboard it at the fan­tas­tic Yas Marina Cir­cuit in Abu Dhabi was enough to con­fi­dently pre­dict the Pani­gale is one of the finest sport­bikes ever made and is a lead­ing con­tender for our annual Motor­cy­cle of the Year award.

There is no area of per­for­mance it doesn’t excel in – power, han­dling, brak­ing, elec­tron­ics. It has every­thing you could

want in a mod­ern liter-sized sport­bike, includ­ing sharp styling that blazes a new design trail. Com­pared to the out­go­ing 1198, the Pani­gale rocks 25 extra horse­power while weigh­ing 22 lbs less.

It’s not often we’re blown away by a new motor­cy­cle, but Ducati’s 1199 Pani­gale astounded us with its per­for­mance, styling and tech­nol­ogy. And the stun­ning Yas Marina Cir­cuit and Viceroy hotel in Abu Dhabi was the per­fect exotic loca­tion for its debut.

Tech Mate

Ducatis have long been known for sexy Ital­ian style, but rarely for imple­ment­ing cutting-edge tech­nol­ogy. The Pani­gale blows that per­cep­tion away.

Key to its design is its unique mono­coque frame which uses the V-Twin engine as a major com­po­nent of its chas­sis. A cast-aluminum sec­tion weigh­ing just 9.3 pounds pro­vides the steering-head sup­port for the fork and, like clever engi­neer­ing solu­tions, also dou­bles as the engine’s air­box and alu­minum fuel tank base. The alloy struc­ture bolts to the engine for the chassis’s core com­po­si­tion, sim­ple as that. Sup­port­ing the seat and tail­sec­tion is another light­weight (just 4.6 pounds) alu­minum piece that bolts to the engine’s rear cylin­der and rear edge of the steer­ing box. A mag­ne­sium struc­ture up front weighs just 1.3 pounds and sup­ports the upper fair­ing, head­lights and gauges.

Stan­dard equip­ment on the $17,995 Pani­gale includes multi-level trac­tion con­trol, three rid­ing modes (Race, Sport, Rain) that vary throt­tle response via the ride-by-wire throt­tle, Ducati’s Quick Shifter and a new-for-2012 Elec­tronic Brak­ing Control.

The upmar­ket S ver­sion ($22,995) brings higher lev­els of spec­i­fi­ca­tion, upgrad­ing from Mar­zoc­chi and Sachs sus­pen­sion to elec­tron­i­cally adjustable Ohlins com­po­nents. Each rid­ing mode has default com­pres­sion and rebound damp­ing set­tings which can also be tweaked indi­vid­u­ally by push­ing a few but­tons on the left-hand switchgear while nav­i­gat­ing the won­der­fully leg­i­ble TFT instru­ment panel. Also on the S is the industry’s first LED headlight.

 

Top of the Pani­gale range is the Tri­col­ore ver­sion that includes ABS, Ter­mignoni muf­flers and a GPS-equipped DDA+ data acqui­si­tion unit that auto­mat­i­cally logs lap times and draws cir­cuit maps.

Let’s Ride!

Unlike any of the dozens of race­tracks I’ve been to, the 3.45-mile Yas Marina Cir­cuit is acces­si­ble by walk­ing directly from our hotel, the visu­ally spec­tac­u­lar Yas Viceroy, to the same pad­dock that annu­ally hosts the exclu­sive For­mula 1 series. Ready in the garage is a pha­lanx of gleam­ing red 1199 Pani­gales that appear even more sin­is­ter than they look in pic­tures. They come across as chic and con­tem­po­rary but with­out being deriv­a­tive of any­thing else. Even my mom, who had her 77th birth­day on my ride day and dis­likes motor­cy­cles, would be able to rec­og­nize the Pani­gale is a spe­cial machine.

Any­one who’s thrown a leg over Ducati’s 1098/1198 mod­els will be pleas­antly sur­prised by the 1199’s revised ergonom­ics. It’s seat is moved more than an inch closer to the han­dle­bars, and the bars are raised 10mm, which add up to a lay­out much less stretched and sig­nif­i­cantly more com­fort­able. Sling­ing a leg over its diminu­tive tail­sec­tion is eas­ier than the 1198’s that had two heavy exhaust can­is­ters stuffed under it. The Pani­gale has its muf­flers placed under the engine, Buell-like, for mass cen­tral­iza­tion. Its seat is said to be at 32.5 inches but seems lower, and its tank feels nicely nar­row between the knees.

Thumb the starter but­ton and the 1199cc V-Twin comes to life with an author­i­ta­tive bark. A clever, cam-mounted decom­pres­sion device allows a much smaller starter motor and bat­tery, sav­ing 7.3 lbs of weight. A twist of the throt­tle has the mas­sive 4.41-inch pis­tons ris­ing in revs quicker than the 1198 and makes its rider smile to the angry exhaust note. The new wet clutch has a mod­er­ate pull and engages with­out the grab­bi­ness of the for­mer dry design.

Pulling the throt­tle hard at 5500 rpm is a lit­tle dis­ap­point­ing com­pared to the 1198’s lump, as the most over­square bore/stroke ratio of any pro­duc­tion motor­cy­cle would lead one to think. But the mild dis­en­chant­ment is entirely for­got­ten once past 7500 rpm when the Superquadro engine piles on revs with feroc­ity pre­vi­ously unknown from any V-Twin.

Peak torque arrives 1000 rpm later than the 1198 at 9000 rpm with a stonk­ing 98.1 ft-lb of force (mea­sured at its crank­shaft). From there, horse­power builds viciously to its 195-horsepower cli­max. It’s worth not­ing the Panigale’s rat­ing is a pair of ponies more than BMW’s scin­til­lat­ing S1000RR, although we’ll have to strap it to a dyno to prove if its horse­power actu­ally reigns supreme.

The Superquadro’s love for revs is dis­tinct from any other liter-size Twin. Sig­nif­i­cantly larger intake and exhaust valves, still desmod­romi­cally actu­ated but now with tita­nium intakes, let the engine breathe in the upper revs allowed by the short-stroke design, scream­ing all the way to 11,500 rpm. The 1199’s engine designer, Marco Sairu, says the Panigale’s ulti­mate pis­ton speed of 22 meters/second is nearly iden­ti­cal to the four-cylinder S1000RR. Despite all this new per­for­mance, a switch from rub­ber cam belts to a chain-and-gear cam drive nearly dou­bles valve adjust­ment inter­vals to 15,000 miles.

My first ses­sion on track was spent in the ECU’s Sport mode that enables all 195 horses but with sup­pler throt­tle response than in Race mode. The Panigale’s ride-by-wire throt­tle allows the two fuel-injecting throt­tle bod­ies to oper­ate inde­pen­dently, using com­puter brain-power to best deliver what a rider’s wrist is ask­ing for. There are two injec­tors in each throt­tle body, the one clos­est to the intake tract employed at lower revs, while the upper showerhead-style injec­tor engages at high rpm.

This sounds more HAL 9000 than it feels, as response from the throt­tle is sur­pris­ingly direct and intu­itive. Reac­tion in Race mode is quite a bit sharper than in Sport but still quite man­age­able. A secondary-air sys­tem can inject air into the exhaust ports for more com­plete com­bus­tion, allow­ing a richer intake charge while still meet­ing emis­sions regs and elim­i­nat­ing the on-throttle abrupt­ness caused by lean mixtures.

After becom­ing accus­tomed to the Superquadro’s gob­s­mack­ing top-end wal­lop, I real­ized the Pani­gale is undoubt­edly the most agile Superbike-series Ducati ever made. Rake remains at 24.5 degrees while trail is length­ened a nom­i­nal 3mm to 100mm. Despite a traction-enhancing longer (by 1.53 inches) swingarm, the 1199’s wheel­base is up just 7mm thanks to Sairu’s thought­ful tight arrange­ment of trans­mis­sion gears.

Regard­less of the barely altered geom­e­try, the Pani­gale responds with eager­ness the 1198 could only dream of. It’s less unwa­ver­ing than the freight-train-like 1198 but not unsta­ble. Its enthu­si­asm to tip into cor­ners is due in large part to its higher and 1.26-inch wider han­dle­bars that deliver more lever­age, but credit also its lighter weight (415 lbs with its larger fuel tank full) and mass-centralization efforts that lower the iner­tia moment around its roll axis. Also, the S ver­sion of the 1199 we tested is shod with light­weight forged and machined March­esini wheels that are nearly 1 lb lighter than the forged wheels on last year’s 1198SP.

The Panigale’s nim­ble­ness was a wel­come sur­prise through Yas Marina’s chicanes.

But there’s more to judg­ing a bike’s han­dling than just fer­vent tip-in behav­ior, and the Panigale’s mid-corner feed­back and com­po­sure also impress. Its weight dis­tri­b­u­tion of 52/48 F/R is iden­ti­cal to Ducati’s World Super­bike, and is advan­ta­geous for front-tire load­ing as com­pared to the pre­vi­ous 50/50 bal­ance. The ergo lay­out makes it easy to hang off in corners.

It was a windy day in Abu Dhabi, bring­ing in an unwel­come dust­ing of sand on the track. Clouds of rooster-tails burst from the tires of bikes ahead and brought major anx­i­ety for adhe­sion lev­els. But a com­bi­na­tion of a grippy track sur­face from aggre­gate shipped in from Eng­land to pave the track plus Pirelli’s excel­lent Super­corsa SP street tires yielded much more trac­tion than expected. The rear Pirelli’s size is the new 200/55–17, and its 24% larger naked (no tread) edges fea­ture a softer com­pound to pro­vide tena­cious grip. The front donut is molded with a sin­gle com­pound in a tra­di­tional 120/70–17 spec.

 

No need to worry about the effi­cacy of the mono­coque chas­sis design.

Strong drive out of cor­ners is aided with the safety net of an updated ver­sion of Ducati Trac­tion Con­trol avail­able in eight set­tings. I rode most of the day in Race mode which has a default DTC set­ting of level 3, and it proved to be unob­tru­sive and engaged dis­cretely.  An orange light at the top of the gauge pack shows when it’s cut­ting in. If you’re TC-phobic, it can be com­pletely switched off.

Hard on the gas, the Pani­gale hurls itself out of cor­ners, pil­ing on revs vora­ciously and demand­ing quick upshifts as indi­cated on the promi­nent sequen­tial shift lights. Stan­dard on all 1199s is the Ducati Quick Shifter which briefly inter­rupts the igni­tion to allow full-throttle clutch­less upshifts. The bike gath­ers speed with S1000RR-like alacrity, pulling up its front wheel over a slight rise even when in fifth gear. At the end of Yas Marina’s 1.2-kilometer straight, the speedome­ter of the Ter­mignoni and up-spec-kitted ver­sion I rode saw an aston­ish­ing 296 kph! That’s 184 mph for the metric-disinclined.

Bleed­ing off speed is the respon­si­bil­ity of a potent set of brakes. New Brembo M50 monoblock 4-piston calipers up front are 7% lighter than the 1198’s and are exclu­sive to the Pani­gale. Bit­ing on 330mm discs, the petite clam­pers deliver a per­fect blend of power and sen­si­tiv­ity. Lots of feed­back encour­ages trail-braking to cor­ner apexes, but the bike is mod­estly reluc­tant to tip in fully with the brakes still on, so it’s best to release them slightly before the apex.

We tested the optional Bosch antilock sys­tem that uses four chan­nels of info (one at each mas­ter cylin­der and one at each caliper) for the utmost in pre­ci­sion. For­get what­ever you thought you knew about ABS on a race­track, as this is one smart and pow­er­ful sys­tem that gives up noth­ing in per­for­mance and adds only 5 lbs. Lev­els 2 and 3 link the rear brake to the front lever to vary­ing degrees, but level 1 does not and dis­en­gages rear ABS to allow stop­pies when brak­ing hard.  And if you’re feel­ing brave, ABS can be disabled.

Fears of brak­ing zones are also assuaged by the slip­per func­tion of its back-torque-limiting clutch and new Elec­tronic Brak­ing Con­trol that cracks open the throt­tle but­ter­flies when decel­er­at­ing to reduce the engine’s compression-braking effect over three lev­els or dis­en­gaged entirely. I kept EBC on Level 1 and had no issues with the back tire danc­ing around dur­ing the hard­est brak­ing I dared to explore.

Yas Marina’s smooth sur­face did lit­tle to test the elec­tron­i­cally con­trolled Ohlins sus­pen­sion, but we’re con­fi­dent the high-quality Swedish dampers are fully up to task. I didn’t touch the taut set­tings that are pro­grammed in the ECU’s Race mode because they felt ideal.

Ohlins elec­tron­i­cally con­trolled sus­pen­sion is stan­dard equipement on the Pani­gale S. The NIX30 fork sep­a­rates damp­ing cir­cuits, com­pres­sion in the left and rebound in the right, and uses a slip­pery titanium-nitride coat­ing for max­i­mum respon­sive­ness. The hor­i­zon­tally placed TTX36 shock fea­tures Ohlins twin-tube tech­nol­ogy to sep­a­rate its damp­ing cir­cuits, and its link­age can be con­fig­ured in two set­tings: a pro­gres­sive rate for street use or a flat-rate for race­track duty.

Con­clu­sion

To any­one notic­ing this has thus far been a sugary-sweet review, you might doubt this author’s objec­tiv­ity. How­ever, the Pani­gale really is this good. In fact, it’s the most impres­sive new sport­bike I’ve rid­den since the debut of Yamaha’s land­mark R1 in 1998.

Reach­ing for crit­i­cisms about the Pani­gale, its faired-in side­stand is hard to snag with the heel of a race boot.

As for neg­a­tives, they are few and minor. Its wind­screen pro­vides only mod­est pro­tec­tion, and its clutch pack sticks out far enough to inter­fere with a rider’s right calf when at a stop. Heat from the engine might be exces­sive when rid­den at low speeds, though likely no worse than the 1198 and prob­a­bly better.

Oth­er­wise, the Pani­gale is a thor­oughly enter­tain­ing super­bike for the street with more tech­nol­ogy than any sport­bike on the mar­ket. Even its mir­rors pro­vide a mod­er­ately use­ful view, which is some­thing unprece­dented from Ducati’s super­bike series.

Rid­ers of diverse abil­i­ties were highly impressed with the Pani­gale. Rishad Cooper, our cor­re­spon­dent from India who rarely rides such pow­er­ful machines on a race­track, had only glow­ing com­ments about the bike. At the other end of the spec­trum is AMA Super­bike racer Chris Ulrich, a guy typ­i­cally not averse to speak­ing neg­a­tively about street-compromised bikes, who said he had no per­for­mance issues with the Ducati.

Sim­ply put, Ducati’s Pani­gale astounded me with its sheer per­for­mance and its high level of refine­ment, plus it is mouth-wateringly stun­ning. The 1199 is a superb machine that had sev­eral jaded moto­jour­nal­ists con­sid­er­ing buy­ing one for them­selves. It might even be the best sport­bike ever made.

(Ed: Don’t for­get to visit the Ducati Pani­gale Forum!)

Tags: Panigale Review

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 21st, 2012 at 11:48 am, and is filed under Panigale. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.