Rennie Scaysbrook | December 9, 2015
Race compound tires, minimal traction control and a Ducati 959 Panigale on a MotoGP racetrack—what could be better!?
PHOTOGRAPHY BY MILAGRO
To read the full story in the magazine, click HERE.
The penultimate corner of the Circuit de la Comunitat Valenciana Ricardo Tormo in Spain showcases one of the great spectacles in motorcycling. It’s a semi-blind, initially rising left hander that swoops dramatically downward to a ultra tight left hairpin, and is one of those corners that begs you, pleads for you to attack it harder than you did the lap before. It makes you happy to be a motorcycle rider.
This is the corner where Marc Marquez is at his brilliant best, sliding and drifting the rear of his million-dollar missile in a show of utter contempt for the laws of physics. I am not of his talent. Nor is my steed of his speed. But that matters not because, right now, I’m having the time of my life.
Through the famous left, the 2016 Ducati 959 Panigale is simply glued to the tarmac, helped no end by the race-spec Pirelli SC2 soft compound rubber adorning the 10-spoke wheels. The chassis is communicating with the clarity of an iPhone with full reception, the front and rear only slightly snaking and shaking, keeping me informed that I’m not yet at the point where my pleasure will instantly turn to pain. This is indeed a good day. And this is indeed a good motorcycle.
The new slipper clutch makes a big difference to the braking poise of the chassis.
The older I get, the faster I was, and a machine like the 959 Panigale makes more sense to a rider of my caliber than its 1299 club bouncer brother. The 959 is agile, svelte, easier to master than the 1299, and builds your confidence like a lady. For 2016, Ducati has upped the capacity from 898cc to 955cc (not 959cc, just so you know—it’s called 959 because Ducati sportbikes now end with a 9, e.g. 1299, 959, 899, etc.), increased the torque primarily from 4000 rpm to 9000 rpm, and generally made it not quite the rev hungry ride the 899 was. The ride has become a little more subdued, more relaxed and not quite as urgent, which only serves you to want ride it harder and more urgently, because the package wills you to do so.
Part of the reason it wills it so is to do with the electronics package you get with the 959. The Ducati Traction Control system (DTC) has come along in absolute leaps and bounds in the last few years, to the point now where its intervention is nothing more than a slight dulling of the power to the rear, and that again encourages earlier and earlier throttle openings, pushing the boundaries and seeing just how far you can take it. A testament to how good the system is now is the fact that despite me constantly trying to get the bike to slide out, the DTC simply refuses to allow anything more than enough of a drift to get the most out of a given acceleration. Only when the rear SC2 is utterly shot to bits does the rear come around, but by then I had plenty of warning. Had traction control not been on I would have ended up on my head many times over.
Or maybe I wouldn’t, because even though the engine has a claimed 157 horsepower at the crank, its application is velvety smooth. The initial throttle opening is predictable, not intimidating, and to ride this thing fast you need to get on the throttle early to keep it driving, because it simply doesn’t have the power required to square off a corner and rear wheel steer it like a superbike. It’s definitely a supersport riding technique that gets the best from the 959; high entry and midcorner speed that means all those years I spent riding little bikes actually pay off in producing a respectable lap time.
The 959 goes hunting for apexes like a lion and throws feedback in the rider’s face.
Even though the engine is less revvy than before, you still need to keep it spinning north of 7000 rpm to get good racetrack drive. Let it drop below this level and the Superquadratto motor will take time to deliver meaningful forward motion, by which stage you’ll be working the gearbox frantically to get it back in its happy zone. This will be less important on the road, which is where the machine is primarily aimed, as there’s no discernable racing class for the 959.
On the track you have to be careful not to hit the soft-action rev limiter, which is an easy thing to do because there’s still decent drive right at the point of power cut out at just after 12,000 rpm and the third red shift light flashes across the top of the digital dash. The gearbox is equipped with a single direction (upshift) quickshifter, not the bi-directional unit found on the 1299. It can be deactivated if desired.
Not having the two-way quickshifter is not really an issue, for me at least, because this is the first midsized Ducati sportbike to come with a proper slipper clutch, which helps to keep the machine extremely stable under hard, high-speed braking. You can jump down three, even four gears at a time if you like, dump the clutch like your ex and the slipper takes care of the rest, giving you more time to set up for the approaching corner that is fast crowding your primal thought process. It’s all a combined act between the slipper clutch, the ABS (in Race mode, there is also Rain and Sport modes) and the chassis, which in itself is an absolute gem of aluminum monocoque thinking. This is a machine that hunts corners like a sniper, identifying, engaging and disposing of them before searching for its next target. The often recalcitrant ways of the 1299, a machine that takes a certain vigor and style to ride to its optimum performance level, is absent in the 959. Look where you want to go and the junior Panigale takes you there. Want to change your line? Not a problem, sir, right this way. Ducati has lengthened the wheelbase by 5mm and lowered it 4mm in the pivot, helping the bike track better under acceleration and helping you maximize drive in search of your next corner victim.
The balance of the 959 means you can get lean angles like this all day (as long as the rubber you have is good!).
The 959 doesn’t have the same braking power as the truck-stopping M50 Brembos found on the 1299, but the slightly lower-spec M4.32 four-piston front calipers do a sufficient job of hauling you up from speed. Our first session had us riding around in Sport mode which had the ABS on near full intervention on the front and rear, and it was far front a pleasant experience over the braking bumps into turn one as the ABS system got confused, pulsated badly and the braking pressure was momentarily released. That meant no brakes for a split second (not a nice feeling), but switching to Race mode gave less intervention on the front and none at all on the rear, meaning normal brake service resumed.
A hint at this machine’s roadbike designation can be found in the fact it’s not the easiest bike to change traction control and ABS settings on. The 1299 has the handy on-the-fly paddle shift on the left bar to change traction control, but to change the desired level on the 959 you have to manually enter the dash and program it at standstill, which is not ideal if you’re racing or track riding. I suppose the 1299 has spoiled us somewhat.
But that’s essentially what the 959 does, only in a different way. The smaller of the two Panigale’s is your friend, and it wants you to ride faster and come away from the experience knowing you got pretty close to your riding limits and lived to tell the tale. Don’t get me wrong, I looove the 1299, all that power corrupts me in a way unprintable here, but the 959 gives different, friendlier vibes that encourage you to brake deeper and accelerate harder than you did on the previous lap.
It’s a bike you’ll want to ride again and again, and that’s one of the best compliments I can pay it.
For more Cycle News Sport Bike motorcycle reviews, click HERE.
For more Ducati motorcycle reviews, click HERE.
To read the full story in the magazine, click HERE.
