V4 Panigale V4s Ride

A friend of mine works for VW and recently got a V4S using the rather nice staff discount scheme. I managed to steal it for a few hours on Thursday and 'accidentally' got lost blasting around the lovely roads near Silverstone.

My mate is undecided whether he likes it as much as the 1299S he had before. He only uses the bike for commuting once or twice a week so doesn't use it very hard and he misses the angriness of the 1299 that liked to wheelie everywhere even on a normal ride through the countryside.

I think this is the paradox of Ducati race bikes until the V4 came along. Maybe because a lot of the user base is of the more 'mature' variety or just people who like a sexy bike they often dont get pushed very hard so the at times wayward nature comes across as exciting. The problem with that is if you do push them hard the bikes can bite back if you get it wrong; I love my 1199R and it happily goes hell for leather but if I make a mistake it can be quite unforgiving. The R6 that I race will soak up any amount of punishment and silliness and over the top moves and keep its composure, whereas the Pani R feels like you have to always get it right to make it work. It is certainly 'exciting' but it also becomes a bit irritating when you're really riding at your limits trying to improve lap times. It's worth mentioning that wheelie control was on setting 2 which on my S1000RR sucks all the character out of the bike so it's quite possibly this was happening with the Pani V4 and that it becomes a wheelie monster once WC is turned down to 1.

With the V4 Ducati seems to have found a really good compromise between the angriness of the 1x99 and the easy but sometimes 'boring' experience of an inline 4 like an S1000RR ( I have one and rate it by the way!). It still sounds like a V2 when you pull away. Any talk that they should have gone for a completely new brand name goes out the window as it's definitely a Panigale still which is no bad thing in my opinion. Low gears are a completely different experience to the old bike; no need to slip the clutch to keep it going now. It's not smooth like an Aprilia Tuono since they purposely made it like a V2 with the firing order but it will cruise much better now. Once I got to the edge of the town and opened it up I was pretty blown away with the power even sticking below 10k revs. It's reeeally fast and I can't work out why a bunch of people have said it doesn't feel it?! When its properly run in and using the full 14.5k rpm it's going to be pull the arms out of the shoulders ridiculous. I think I need to maybe ride it back to back with a litre bike since I've only been riding the R6 this year but it felt like the fastest bike I've ridden even only using 10k rpm.

Its a bit like the older Panigale in that it needs pushing quite hard to feel positive with the front and back end, which makes sense since it's made for going really really fast so that kind of bike always feels a bit vague at slow speeds. That said it still felt somehow different to the 1x99 Panigale, it took me a little while to feel hooked up on the road. It doesn't give you quite as much confidence to drop it onto its side from upright like the older bike but when you do drop it then it feels awesomely hooked up. I think it is the larger profile rear tyre that gives this feeling as I have a similar setup on the race bike. It feels slightly vague and balance-y when upright but then when you do drop it on it's side it feels amazingly good because of the extra side profile of the tall tyre and you have loads of drive from big lean angles.

One thing that I badly want to try on the V4 is how well it deals with hairpin like corners. The 1x99 always understeer a little compared to other litre bikes and I have to spin the rear up to get them to turn quick enough. The way the Panigale loves to do mega lean angels makes up for this to some extent but it means you need to work harder and take more risk. I didn't want to risk heavy lean angle on my mates new bike but I'm very optimistic that the V4 makes this a thing of the past.



The controls are great, the selector switches and the dash design are Apple quality and the best I have seen on any bike. The only thing that was a little annoying was the indicators are a bit tricky to find with the thumb. A compromise I'd happily make for the ease of use of the other stuff. I couldn't work out how to get it into race mode which I normally use on the 1199R but my mate had put sport mode up to the most direct high power setting anyhow so it was much the same as race mode. I was riding in a set of jeans since I didn't have my own riding gear with me and my legs were being cooked. I dont think jeans on a summers day will be much fun!





Good job there are plenty of fuel stations about!




In the couple hours of riding the bike I was very impressed even without the full rev range due to running in still. It isn't as 'exciting' as the 1299 simply because it is more capable imo; I think it will allow anyone to ride harder on track than they would on a 1x99 Panigale. Its pull your arms out of your shoulders fast and it will be interesting to see what the rivals such as the new BMW are like in comparison next year as the bar is set very high with the V4.



Back to bed:

 

It honestly feels like you are on a Panigale, it doesn't feel fat at all.

 

I'm really envious! I can't afford or justify a big buy just now so I'm waiting until the bank account hopefully replenishes and the R is available next year! After the 1199R I would be seriously looking at an S if I was planning to use it on both track and road as I think the electronic suspension has come of age for mixed use now and makes road riding much more enjoyable.

 

Thats a good point about the sound. It does sound just like a twin on run in revs but in the video reviews it sounded just like a more traditional V4 sound.