Ducati did a good job keeping this one quiet. Even when launch invitations are sent out without stating the model to be launched you can normally take an educated guess as to what bike it will be. I was told by Urry( who normally gets it right) that I would probably be riding a new 848S so I was pretty confused when the1198 was unveiled at the Milan show.
At the same time I was surprised to hear Ducati were claiming it had the same power output as the 1098R, but was around nine grand cheaper. This bothered me during the weeks leading up to the launch as it appeared Ducati had unfairly squeezed some extra cash from 1098R owners when all along they knew a much cheaper version with the same performance was in the pipeline. Before I even sat on the new bike I was keen to get to the bottom of
this and hopefully in the process find Ducati not guilty of stitching anyone up.