Performance Bikes — March 2018

DUCATI

22

Ducati Panigale V4:

the world’s best

sportsbike. Fact

THE TEAM

MARCH 2018|PERFORMANCEBIKES.CO.UK 7

Chris

Newbigging

Editor, [email protected]

Call 0844 848 8872

greatmagazines.co.uk/pb

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CHRIS NEWBIGGING

EDITOR

[email protected]

Proud owner of Cambridgeshire’s

biggest hands.

JEREMY McWILLIAMS

COLUMNIST

[email protected]

Played the motorcyclist in creepy

sci-fihorrormovie‘UndertheSkin’.

CAROLINE BARRETT

EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

[email protected]

Knee down (albeit closely followed by

wholeR6down)atCadwell,2008.

KAR LEE

FORUM EDITOR

[email protected]

Peterborough’s premier Mariah Carey

karaoke singer.

JOHN McAVOY

ROAD TESTER

[email protected]

Once named ‘Britain’s worst racer’ in a

rival/sister publication. OK, it was MCN.

JOHN BENNETT

VLOGGER

http://www.youtube.com/lambchoprides

20,000 YouTube subscribers and UK’s

top Sean Connery impersonator.

MICHAEL RUTTER

TRACK TESTER

[email protected]

Currentholderoftheworldrecordfor

‘Longest time without buying a round’.

MARK WHITE

TECHNICIAN

[email protected]

Winner of Westside gym’s ‘Most

buff vegan’ contest, January 2018.

AUSTIN SMITH

ART EDITOR

[email protected]

Top10inLeicestershirecounty

cyclocross championships

NEXT ISSUE ON SALE

MARCH 7, 2018

HYPE IS A DANGEROUS thing to generate for any new product: there’s been

plenty of it around the Panigale V4. WillitbeflawedliketheMotoGPbikewas

until very recently? Will it sacrifice everything Ducati has stood for in the 43

years since it first placed two cylinders at

90 degrees to each other?

Any questions over Ducati’s move into

a new world for its flagship sportsbike

are now answered. I was on the launch,

on Valencia’s extremely technical MotoGP

circuit. It’s almost an odd location to

launch a bike claiming 214bhp – mostly

second/third-gear bends – but what it did was prove the V4’s worth beyond

a dyno. More than any other Ducati superbike (and everyone

else’s, I’m confident), its stunning handling, braking, grip and

power curve are exploitable from warm-up lap pace

rightuptothelaptimessetbyDucati’s

test rider, which would have qualified

him(just)forthe2017MotoGP

race.That’sonp22;thereare

plenty of other great features in

the issue, too, but read it first.

It’s a truly special bike.

THANKS TO

Alan Jones, Dave Wood Racing, Hideaki Ikeda,

Max at Venhill, Velox Racing, AP Racing, Amstel.

NO THANKS TO

DART charge, LAMMA show, icy decking,

Bernard Matthews, incompetent DPD couriers.

CROWNING GLORIES

‘Its stunning

handling, grip,

braking and

power are fully

exploitable’