WSBK

The Ducati Panigale R and Its Carbon “Wheel Cover”

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While everyone else seems to be turning a blind eye to aerodynamics, Ducati continues to be the brand pushing the aero envelope with its designs.

As such, World Superbike fans may have seen this weekend that Chaz Davies was sporting a unique rear end, as Ducati Corse continues to experiment with a lenticular wheel setup.

A piece of technology borrowed mostly from cycling, the carbon fiber disc “wheel cover” provides a more slippery surface for the wind to flow over, than the chaos that comes from a spinning spoked wheel on a motorcycle.

Ducati has played with a lenticular wheel before, with Michele Pirro sporting the design in the recent MotoGP testing season.

We haven’t seen the aerodynamic wheel appear in MotoGP again – we haven’t seen Ducati apply any more aerodynamic bits this season, actually – but the testing resumed this weekend with the WorldSBK squad.

It is not clear what gains there have been for Ducati in this pursuit. We do know that we haven’t seen the covered wheel design used in a race yet, which should be of note. Davies did use the “wheel cover” (as Ducati is officially calling it) during Saturday’s Superpole at Misano, so there is that.

One would think that if Ducati was seeing progress on the time sheet that it would implement the wheel in anger more often. However, seeing it on the Panigale R this late in the WorldSBK season is of note, especially as Ducati just began teasing the demise of its v-twin superbike platform.

Of course, the Italian brand will still race with the Panigale R next year – that much we know for certain – though there is some chatter that the upcoming V4 model will take a stronger focus on aerodynamics than previous road-going models, which could be very interesting.

Photo: Ducati Corse

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