Even before we had taken the Duke out of its crate, there was a crowd of trackday-goers drooling over its red and white Corse bodywork. And I couldn’t blame them; it looked as trick as trick can be, and the crowd of onlookers only grew as we unloaded the transport stillage. In fact, during the course of our three days at Parcmotor there seemed to be a constant stream of folk wanting selfies with the V4S. There was no question about which of our three USB finalists was the most fashionable, the Duke would win that trophy hands down.
But we weren’t at Parcmotor to figure out which bike was the best for your street cred, oh no. Our primary objective was to go as fast as we possibly could on all three bikes – and I’ll be honest, after my very first, untimed session on the red rocket I had high hopes for Bologna’s best. I’d never been to this circuit before and the Ducati proved to be a sublime bike to learn the track on – those mid-corner line changes were a piece of piss, such was the bike’s athleticism; whilst I was bimbling around, I felt as though I could put the bike wherever I wanted to on the track, like a fully sorted Supersport bike, not a bog standard 1100cc road bike.