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Claudio Domenicali

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Ducati is the first OEM to brag about its 2021 sales results, and it is quite the brag from the Italian brand – with 59,447 units sold last year.

That sum is an all-time record for Ducati Motor Holding, and marks a 12% gain over the total sales from 2019, and a 24% gain over 2020’s results.

Helping take Ducati to that level was double-digit growth in all of the motorcycle-maker’s key markets, including the United States, where sales were up a staggering 33.5%.

That growth was surely fueled by the Ducati Multistrada V4 adventure bike, which accounted for nearly 1 in 5 Ducati’s sold in 2021.

At the end of this week, Audi will release its official Q1 report for investors, which means that on Friday, we will get to see a fairly detailed view of how Ducati Motor Holding has fared in 2021 thus far.

Why wait until the end of the week though? A&R has an advanced look at those numbers now, with the Bologna brand touting a 33% increase in worldwide sales, compared to Q1 2020.

It was strange to see another press release from Ducati Motor Holding about the 2020 sales year - you would think that the Italian brand would like to forget about the 9.7% sales drop it reported for last year.

Like virtually every other motorcycle brand in the industry, last year was tough on unit sales, though there were some very promising trends later in the season. As such, everyone is trying to spin the events and put their best foot forward - Ducati included.

So while it is at least strange to see the Bologna brand touting its cash flow results for 2020, one can at least understand why they are doing so.

What is more interesting though are some of the tidbits Ducati released in the process, which shows an insight into the company's operations and trends.

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It was just two months ago that we were talking about one of the latest build kits from Lego, as it was a Technic set for the Ducati Panigale V4 R (kit #42107).

As such, our love for the little Danish bricks should be well known, especially when it intersects our love for motorcycles.

Today, we again see nice overlap of those two worlds on the Venn diagram, as Lego artist Riccardo Zangelmi has created this 1:1 replica of the Ducati Panigale V4 R, in order to celebrate the launch of Ducati’s much smaller Lego kit offering.

After months of shutdown, Italy is finally letting its citizens out of their houses, to start their march back to the new normal of daily life. We can only imagine the great relief this means to millions of Italians, after they endured some of the worst effects of COVID-19 in the world.

For our own selfish two-wheeled pursuits, this news also means the return of operations for Italian motorcycle manufacturers, which have seen their factories motionless while larger issues were addressed. Of course, this too leads us to the news that life is returning to the Ducati factory in Borgo Panigale.

Accordingly, we get word (from a tweet from Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali, no less) that the Ducati Superleggera V4 is nearing the start of its production, but not before the carbon fiber superbike heads to the Nardò for some high-speed testing.

Starting this week, the Ducati factory in Borgo Panigale will once again rev to life, as the Italian brand returns to production work in Bologna, Italy.

While the production lines will continue, Ducati will not be continuing with business as usual. This is because the Italian motorcycle maker will only be recalling the minimal number of employees to restart the production and research operations.

Working together with the union (RSU), Ducati has created a new safety protocol, which includes everyone wearing masks, regardless of distancing.

As the spread of the coronavirus continues, motorcycle manufacturers in Europe (especially in Italy) are having to continuously adjust their plans and expectations.

Accordingly, we get news that Ducati Motor Holding will continue to suspend and augment its factory activities through March 25th, pushing back its reopen date as the situation in Italy continues to worsen.

For the Italian brand, the move isn’t a total disruption, as the factory was already slated for closure between March 13th and today, March 18th.

It had promised to be a spectacular Silly Season in MotoGP this year. With all 22 rider contracts up for renewal at the end of this season, several long months of hard bargaining was expected, resulting in a major shakeup of the grid. Few seats were expected to be left untouched.

Yamaha dealt the first body blow to any major grid shakeup, moving quickly to extend Maverick Viñales’ contract through 2022, then moving rookie sensation Fabio Quartararo to race alongside him in the Monster Energy Yamaha team.

Valentino Rossi was promised full factory support from Yamaha in a satellite team if he decided to continue racing after 2020 instead of retiring.

Yamaha’s hand had been forced by Ducati. The Italian factory had made an aggressive play for both Viñales and Quartararo, and Yamaha had brought the decision on their future plans forward to early January.

Yamaha decided to go with youth over experience, and Ducati was left empty-handed.

On Thursday, Ducati presented its 2020 MotoGP team at a spectacular location: the Palazzo Re Enzo in the heart of Bologna’s main Piazzo Maggiore square.

Before the launch was live-streamed to the public, the main protagonists spoke to the media to lay out Ducati’s plans for the 2020 MotoGP season. And though nothing inside the team is changing, and factories always attempt to keep their cards close to their chest, they always manage to let one or two things slip, whether inadvertently or not.

Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali kicked off the press conference with a justification of why Ducati goes racing. The crux of his argument was that disruptive technologies and a rapidly changing political environment made it imperative for companies to be as independent as possible. That meant being able to rely on their own knowledge, and not having it taken away by outside factors.

“To be economically independent, we at Ducati absolutely think that investment in research in development is crucial,” Domenicali told us.

“And we at Ducati consider racing as the most advanced part of our research and development. And when we put together all the effort for racing, for production bike research and development and all the tooling to make and produce new bikes for racing and production we are above 10% of our total company turnover.”

While news of the Ducati Superleggera V4 is breaking the internet right now, other headlines are also coming out of Bologna, as Ducati has released its 2019 sales figures.

Tallying a total of 53,183 motorcycles delivered to customers worldwide, Ducati managed to beat the 53,004 units from 2018 – an increase of 0.34% in worldwide sales, for those who are counting.

Holding that figure back though was the brand’s progress in the United States, with the American market dropping close to 2% compared to last year, with 7,682 motorcycles sold last year.