The Ducati Panigale V2 S (2025) : Ducati’s Panigale lineup of sport bikes has historically been at the top of the Italian company’s performance game. If you strive for the maximum speed possible when on track, few bikes offer the kind of provenance the Panigale can provide.So you can imagine the gasps when, at the end of 2024, the Borgo Panigale brand unveiled a new-for-2025 iteration of its popular V2, which immediately became
the least powerful Panigale yet.
And this time the lower power output was not about cutting emissions or bettering fuel economy – or at least that was the theory… With this bike, Ducati claimed it wanted to widen the net of Panigale ownership. That means customers who will probably never see the inside of a race track, and those put off by the old V2’s 150bhp plus power figure.
For this test, we roamed to the global press launch in Seville, Spain. So we’d sample on track the V2 S variant of the new Panigale over six fifteen-minute sessions around the brand new Seville Circuit, just outside the small city of Carmona. Price of the 2025 Panigale V2 Availability of the 2025 Panigale V2 Colours of the 2025 Panigale V2
The new Panigale V2 S will be arriving in dealers in the UK in Q1 2025, priced at £16,995 – an increase of £2,000 over the outgoing bike. The new base model V2 will be listed at £14,995, just like the outgoing machine. When it comes to colours, you can order anything you want, so long as it is red.
What’s up with the new 2025 Panigale V2 S
With such broad changes for the model, it’s to be expected that the new bike is just that, all-new from the bottom to the top. It does borrow some of the old bike’s design language, like the front monocoque frame and instantly recognisable Panigale styling.
The cause of all the headlines, however, is the engine. When the outgoing 955cc Superquadro proved too difficult (read: costly) to bring into Euro-5+ spec, Ducati’s alternative was to create an entirely new engine platform. A model that can slot inbetween the other bikes in the range, such as the Multistrada V2 and Streetfighter V2.
The result is an 890cc 90-degree V-twin, canted back in the frame by 20 degrees and used as a stressed member. In Panigale spec it makes a claimed 118bhp at 10,750rpm and 68 lb-ft of peak torque at 8,250rpm. Peak power might be over 30bhp down on the Superquadro’s but with more torque available earlier in the rev range (70 per cent from 3,000rpm) it’s predicted to be a lot friendlier — and much easier to use.
The rest of the bike is more in line with the Panigale bloodline as the V2 S gets a fully adjustable Ohlins NIX fork at the front, with a matching Ohlins shock in the rear. Thanks to V4-sourced assistance that checks all the boxes, the electronics package is as good as it gets at this capacity. You also get wheelie control, launch control, a pit-lane limiter, engine brake control, the obligatory cornering ABS and traction control and an up-and-down shifter and blipper.
The old V2 was a track tool with lights; the new one has more relaxed, and much less extreme ergonomics than its predecessor, something that had no other aim than to make the 2025 bike “the best Ducati sportbike on the road ever made.”