Ducati’s new Streetfighter V4 prototype to begin benchmark testing at Pikes Peak

As the annual

Pikes Peak International Hill Climb

approaches, automakers of all kin are getting ready to steal some of the spotlight to showcase their newest projects.

Ducati

is one of them, and just officially announced its newest sport bike: the Streetfighter V4.

Scheduled for a 2020 launch,

Ducati’s

newest hot rocket will undergo some benchmark testing at the world-renowned Pikes Peak road course with renowned racer and record breaker Carlin Dunne at the helm. Back in 2012, Dunne set a new lap time of just 9:52.819 in the

Ducati

Multistrada 1200 S. It was the first

motorcycle

to ever smash the 10-minute timing mark in the world-famous Race To The Clouds hillclimb stage. That was, until Jeremy Toye broke Dunne’s record in 2014 with a Kawasaki Ninja ZX-10R.

Dunne will attempt to set the record again with this latest Streetfighter V4 in prototype form.

It starts life as a

Panigale V4

. Ducati then strips it of its excess and adds higher and wider handlebars. The Streetfighter is then dressed in a slick new livery that accentuates the bike’s high-performance functionality.

“The Streetfighter V4 will be one of the stars of the

Ducati

World Premiere 2020,” said Ducati’s CEO, Claudio Domenicali. “Streetfighter V4 is the Panigale for road riding, so there was no better stage than the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb for what will be the highest-performance Streetfighter ever put into production.”