Italian isn’t just a language. It’s a voice that speaks different things to different people. It speaks through just about everything you can touch and see. It transforms the mundane into magic, the routine into revered, it makes poems from pangs. The richness of this voice is perhaps best known to us through their automobiles, two wheels or four. To us automotive enthusiasts, it is eloquent, passionate, unhesitating and unwavering. They whisper wonderfully, but the timbre and tone changes, hinting at subtleties of characters. MV Agusta’s F4 and Lamborghini’s Huracán LP580-2 might seem unrelated at first, by years and genes, but spend time with them like we did, and then you’ll find that their voices do indeed seem oddly similar.
Crossing the line
“Let’s do that drift shot, shall we?” I ask Narain Karthikeyan who is piloting the Huracán for now. I am to lead, he will follow, we agree. I roll on the gas gently, watch the mirrors and wait for those cruel white eyes to come closer. The Lambo hangs back a bit, and then comes the roar from the V10. I don’t bother to check the mirrors any more, and open the gas. Immediately, I find that delicious and maddening medley that triggered the desire to bring these two machines together in the first place. The tingle of the engine felt through the bars, the roar of air being sucked in hungrily, and the growl from the in-line four rise from under me and work its way into my being. The engine might have been designed by Ferrari’s Formula 1 engineers, but it immediately reminded me of current-gen Lamborghinis. The Agustas sit in a rarefied spectrum even by Italian standards as supply is tight and pricing is at a premium when compared to the motorcycles from Bologna.
In the saddle, the F4 has drowned out the Lamborghini completely. The pop-pop from the exhaust, when you roll off the gas, is the icing on this cake. The MV Agusta’s turn-in is precise, but it feels a bit weighty – an inkling of its age. Couple that with ferocious performance and it means you need to focus on building a rhythm through the corners. The long left is tricky and with just a bit of nervousness, I throw the MV in and pour on the power. I know I need to keep a clean line and stay on the bike, as any mistakes could turn me into Lambo lunch. The Pirelli Supercorsa SP rubber stays glued to the tarmac and lets me rip out of the corner angrily. As I look back, I am surprised to see the Lamborghini grinning malevolently, just a few metres away! That’s all the reason I needed to open the gas again.
Running around the track, the steely performance of the engine becomes quite evident. The ingredients are special, like radial valves, varying length intake trumpets and near 200hp. The surge in the power delivery also emphasises the rawness of this experience. But it’s the utter, mind-numbing, time-stopping, light-bending force of the power delivery in the last 4,000rpm of the rev range that could make your heart stop. ‘Manic’ doesn’t begin to cut it. Get a touch too quick with the gas and the F4 thinks nothing of lifting its front wheel even at lower speeds. In corners, with the assistance of the inertial measurement unit and the allied electronic aids, you learn to relax a bit, but even then the throttle needs to be treated with respect.
