Ducati Desmosedici GP12 Unveiled

Ducati Corse, the racing arm of the Italian motorcycle company took the wraps off its 2012 race machine today during a virtual unveiling that was carried out on the Facebook page of TIM, one of the main sponsors to the Ducati MotoGP Team. A gala event was held which was streamed live over the internet in order to launch the GP12 Ducati motorcycle that will compete in the 2012 MotoGP season and will be piloted by 7-time World Champion Valentino Rossi and 2006 MotoGP World Champion Nicky Hayden. 

The new Ducati race bike is expected to be all-new machine with radical changes to the motorcycle in order to be more competitive this year after a rather difficult MotoGP season in 2011. Ducati has been working very hard in the past months to reform the GP12 to suit Rossi’s riding style. Result of all this work is a completely new Ducati race-machine for 2012 that made its track debut at the Sepang test albeit in all-black livery.

The official colours that the Ducati GP12 will carry were shown today during the online launch, and as always, the bike looks incredibly gorgeous in the Italian colours. Apart from bumping up the engine displacement to 1,000cc in line with the new regulations, Ducati has changed a lot more on the GP12, starting with the frame. While previously the Italian firm was contesting of employing a frameless design with engine as the stressed member that idea has been scrapped for an aluminium twin spar chassis. 

This was chiefly due to the engine use restrictions, as the twin spar frame offers more options to re-position the same engine for varying setups unlike the frameless design, where relocating the motor for better results means every time employing a new engine. The results during the Sepang tests have shown fair improvement in Rossi and Hayden’s times compared to last year, but its still remains to be seen if the all-new GP12 can challenge the blisteringly fast Honda of Casey Stoner and equally quick Yamaha of Jorge Lorenzo.

Image courtesy: TIM