DUCATI HYPERMOTARD 698 MONO SINGLEMINDED

Few could have predicted Ducati's decision to build a feisty, featherweight supermoto, but we're superglad the top brass took the decision to roll the dice in this this direction.

It turns out there are only so many times you can ignore the chequered flag before you're faced with an angry marshal and a barrage of swear words so profound they needed no translation from Spanish to English. Maybe that second lap was taking the piss a little, but if ever there was a time to roll the dice and keep the throttle wide open, this was it: the final session of six on the lofty seat of Ducati's much-hyped motard. As days at work go, this was going to take some beating.

Of course, that was always likely to be the case. Like so many others, my face lit up like a kid's at Christmas when Ducati pulled the covers off this very unexpected yet welcome protagonist. Where the hell did that come from? And why hadn't Ducati done so sooner, I wondered, until the back story came my way during the model's presentation out in Valencia. As it happens, the whole dream of this machine was spawned four years earlier by one man's suggestion that he could build a powerful and playful motor by severing a cylinder from the brand's defunct Panigale 1299 powerplant. Of course, there's a bit more to it than just getting the angle grinder out, but the principle proved sound, and before it knew it, Ducati found itself in unknown territory, sporting a production-based single-cylinder in its range for the first time ever (its supermoto racer wasn't mass-produced).

And not just any single-cylinder, but one with magnesium casings, an over-square racing piston, and an aluminum cylinder sleeve designed and built for the second-generation Superleggera. Throw in twin balancer shafts and a desmodromic valvetrain, and you'll start to understand why this whopper of a single was able to not only rev higher than any of its single-minded rivals but pump out more power too. And the best bit... the whole motor weighs in at just 45 kilos.