The Ducati Multistrada V4 family got a little bigger today, with the Italian brand offering the Ducati Multistrada V4 Rally for the 2023 model year.
The bike is aimed at the niche carved out by bikes like the BMW R1250GS Adventure, where long-distance travel (over questionable terrain) is the name of the game.
To aid in that goal, Ducati has added several key features that set the Multistrada V4 Rally apart from the rest of the Bologna brand’s lineup.
The Ducati Monster lineup will grow by another model for the 2023 model year, as the Italian brand has announced the new Ducati Monster SP for next year.
Available in January 2023, the Ducati Monster SP boasts Öhlins suspension, Brembo Stylema calipers, and a homologated Termignoni exhaust amongst other key features.
With a price tag of $15,595 MSRP for the USA, the Monster SP commands a $2,900 price difference over the lesser-spec’d Monster+.
That extra coin gets you the above-mentioned goodies, along with a “MotoGP inspired” livery, lithium-ion battery, and a steering damper. All told, the Monster SP is just under 5 lbs lighter than its cheaper sibling.
The business structure of Ducati Motor Holding is a lot like one of those nesting Russian dolls – the Italian motorcycle brand is owned by Lamborghini, which is owned by Audi, which is owned by Volkswagen…whose stock is largely owned by Porsche, which is also owned by VW.
Are you still with me? Good, because it will can also be a little confusing without this knowledge to see the Lamborghini name on a motorcycle. This isn’t the first time that the two Bologna companies have made a fraternal partnership, however.
The Ducati Diavel 1260 Lamborghini was a polarizing project, but a strong-seller for Ducati, with the bike selling out almost instantly once it debuted.
Lamborghini and Ducati are now looking to rekindle that magic, and have tapped the Ducati Streetfighter V4 S for the job. As such, say hello to the Ducati Streetfighter V4 Lamborghini.
Enea Bastianini has won the battle for the second seat in the factory Ducati Lenovo Team.
The leaders of Ducati Corse’s MotoGP project have now picked the Italian over his Spanish rival, Jorge Martin, for the seat alongside Pecco Bagnaia. Bastianini and Bagnaia will form the factory Ducati team for the next two seasons, through 2024.
Episode 287 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this one sees us looking at the unveiling of the Ducati MotoE race bike for the 2023 season.
On the mics, we have David Emmett and Jensen Beeler as they look what is taking place in electric motorcycle racing with the FIM MotoE World Cup.
In many ways, Ducati’s MotoE project is the opposite of all the electric motorcycle projects which have gone before.
Up until very recently, conventional motorcycle manufacturers have mostly stayed well away from electric motorcycles, preferring to wait and see how the technology, and the political and legislative framework in which this all takes place, will play out.
Exceptions have been few and far between: beyond electric scooters, KTM have the Freeride, an electric enduro machine, and Honda worked with Mugen on their bike which dominated the TT Zero race on the Isle of Man.
That has left the field open for a host of new companies, which have operated with varying success. Silicon Valley produced a large swathe of start ups, mostly run by motorcycle enthusiasts from the area’s electric vehicle and technology industries, and funded with VC money.
A few others, such as Energica, are engineering start ups producing electric vehicles and based in areas with strong automotive industry links. Small companies with limited manufacturing and engineering facilities which relied on widely available components and techniques for a large part of their bikes.
So when Energica won the first contract to produce the MotoE racer, they were competing against other specialist electric motorcycle manufacturers, sometimes no bigger than a handful of people based in of small workshops.
But all had the same philosophy: to take their existing products and turn it into a race bike, by stripping unnecessary ballast and upgrading suspension, braking, and various chassis components.
Their race bikes, and the Energica Ego Corsa which became the MotoE bike when the series first started in 2019, are basically the electric bike version of Superstock spec machines: production bikes which have been turned into racing machines by upgrading existing components to racing spec.
At the technical presentation of their MotoE machine on Thursday, the contrast between what has gone before and Ducati’s approach couldn’t be greater.
Today is a big day for Ducati Motor Holding, as it is making its public debut of its upcoming MotoE race bike.
The first Ducati-branded electric motorcycle, the “V21L” is not only a culmination of Ducati’s motorcycle knowledge, but also a testing platform for the Italian brand to understand the future of two-wheel racing.
The bombshell racing news for 2023 has to be the fact that Ducati is taking over as the sole-manufacturer of the FIM MotoE World Cup, which runs at select MotoGP race rounds.
Before this news, Ducati was perhaps the last brand you would expect to embrace an electric powertrain, and since their MotoE announcement, the folks in Borgo Panigale have been working publicly on that goal with gusto.
Now today, we get our first proper glimpse at the Ducati “V21L” MotoE project, but also some of the performance specs we can expect in the MotoE series.
First off, the numbers you are dying to hear: 495 lbs (225 kg) ready-to-race, 150hp (110 kW) of peak power, 103 lbs•ft of torque (140 Nm), a 18 kWh battery pack (running at 800 volts) that can be charged to 80% in 45 minutes with the onboard 20 kW charger, and a top speed of over 170 mph (275 km/h) at the Mugello track.
Not to over-use an Italian cliché, but that’s a spicy meatball, and close to what Ducati achieves with its Panigale V4 superbike.
The next piece of the 2023 puzzle has fallen into place. Today, KTM and Ducati announced that Jack Miller would be leaving the factory Ducati squad at the end of 2022, and joining KTM for the 2023 and 2024 season to race in the Red Bull KTM Factory Racing squad.
Miller is no stranger to KTM. The Australian raced for KTM in his final year in Moto3, before making the move to MotoGP. He is managed by Aki Ajo, the veteran team manager of KTM’s Moto2 and Moto3 squads.
So a return to KTM is no surprise, and had been the subject of rumors for several weeks now.
The Ducati DesertX is an important model for the Italian brand, as it marks the first modern 21″ dual-sport from the brand, and Borgo Panigale’s entry into the middleweight ADV space.
The DesertX has come a long way since its 2019 concept debut, where it first came from the Scrambler subrand and with an air-cooled DesmoDue engine.
Now water-cooled (using the 937cc Testastretta 11° engine) and under the main Ducati marque, the Ducati DesertX is finally getting into the hands of the motorcycling press, which means we have no shortage of high-resolution photos to share with you.
Episode 85 of the Brap Talk motorcycle podcast is out with another “weekly” episode, for your two-wheeled listening pleasure.
In this episode we talk about what happened last week in the motorcycle industry…and the week before that…and the week before that. Okay, we talk about a lot of things that have happened so far this year.