Dilip Lalwani, official DRE (Ducati Ride Experience) instructor, has broken the all-time lap record (for motorcycles) at the Buddh International Circuit aboard a track-prepped 2022 Ducati Panigale V4 and the record now stands at 1:55:963.
- Dilip Lalwani breaks BIC speed record atop Panigale V4
- Modded bike featured official Ducati accessories
The previous lap record stood at 1:56:316, which was set by official Ducati test rider Alessandro Valia aboard a nearly stock 2018 Ducati Panigale V4 S, with the exception of slick tyres and the deletion of road-legal necessities such as mirrors and number-plate holder.
The 2022 Panigale V4 ridden by Dilip Lalwani, however, was far from stock and featured a number of accessories from the official Ducati accessories catalogue. The most obvious difference to the stock bike was the presence of a racing full-titanium Akrapovic undertail twin-barrel exhaust system which comes with a dedicated racing map. This helps bump up peak output figures to 228hp and 131Nm from the standard 215.5hp and 123.6Nm.
The stock front and rear suspension hardware were also replaced with manually-adjustable Ohlins units from the Ducati catalogue. The stock fairing had been replaced by a track-spec fairing, removing all road-legal necessities, which also helped shave some weight. A few carbon-fibre Ducati accessories can also be seen in the form of the front fender, the engine case covers and even brake-cooling ducts. The fully adjustable footpegs are also from the accessory catalogue and are made from billet aluminium. The final time-saving and performance-enhancing mod was in the form of Pirelli slick tyres.
This is the fastest a motorcycle has ever lapped the BIC but it bears mentioning that the track layout for motorcycles and cars is slightly different, with the circuit for the cars including the parabola at the top. Effectively, this means that the lap times of cars and bikes can’t really be compared.
Azaman Chothia
Vishal Venugopal
