What it’s like to ride on the back of the MotoGP Ducati Desmosedici

The experience was an accident of genetics more than anything else. The only other willing candidate in the GRR team didn’t quite meet the typically tiny Italian size restrictions, and so it was me, less than two months into life at Goodwood, who found myself sliding into oversized leathers on the sweltering Saturday morning of the 2019 Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard.

After being ushered through a brief medical – blood pressure and heart rate etc. – I squeaked down to the holding area, where my pilot Franco Battaini was already astride the fluorescent red machine. Dating from 2012, it was once a bonafide MotoGP racer but now, thanks to a revised sub-frame and stiffer springs, features a pillion seat behind the rider.

The 160kg, 1,000cc GP12 makes 250 horsepower – around 20 to 30 horsepower less than the modern day MotoGP challengers. Franco attributed this to a lower redline, reasoning that the team don’t want to push the bike too hard for safety reasons – they don’t want it to break during a lap with a passenger.

Plus, he added, “You know with passenger we wheelie very much and we don’t need all that power.” That was definitely something I could vouch for later.

Franco himself was equally impressive, with a motorcycle racing CV dating back to before I was born. The Italian emerged on to the world circuit in the 1996 250cc Championship, achieving best finishes of 6^th in both 2002 and 2003 aboard Aprilia machinery. He made his MotoGP debut with Czech team Blata in 2005, finishing the year in 22^nd, before dabbling in both the Superbike and Supersport World Championships. He joined Ducati as a test rider in 2009, and since 2015 has focussed his attentions on the Mission Winnow two-seater, on which he gives thrilling pillion rides at every GP round on the calendar.

However, at 1.16-miles long, a third of the width of a typical world circuit and with straw bales replacing a catch fence, the Goodwood Hill would be a significantly slower affair, he assured me.  

“It’s very strange to see these MotoGP bikes in this small street on a hill, and it is probably difficult for passengers to understand what it’s like during the MotoGP race,” he commented.

“On a track, it’s amazing, and you can really feel what MotoGP is like – the power of the engine and the braking force. But, I think for this show, for Goodwood, it’s also fantastic to make this small street, I like it very much.”

Even on the short spurt down to the start line, I realised he’d undersold the ride. Patting my hands on the aluminium tank handles, he pivoted on to the back wheel, pulling a long wheelie past the grandstand.

‘So this is what the elusive balance point feels like’, I laughed in my helmet.

As we arrived at the start line, I clambered off my carbon fibre perch, taking care not to step on the titanium alloy Akrapovic exhausts. While the atmosphere was electric, the air was heavy with the smell of Castrol R and two-stroke smoke, as dozens of cars and motorcycles congregated ahead of their pilgrimage up the Hill. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before. A Mercedes-Benz W125 was followed by a deafening Leyton House CG121 – one of Adrian Newey’s first Formula 1 cars, driven by the man himself – while Triumph’s Moto2 bike idled noisily next to the 1949 AJS E90S ‘Porcupine’, the inaugural World Championship-winning motorbike.

Meanwhile, I conversed with Agostini, sat astride his championship-winning 1965 MV Agusta 500. The Septuagenarian grasped my hand warmly. ‘How are you? Are you having a good day?’ the 15-time-World Champion asked in French, with the casual manner of a long-time acquaintance.

Desmosedici no. 42 was the last of Class 10, Batch 3 to tear up the Hill, and we took a rolling start across the line. No sooner had we crossed the Indianapolis bricks that Franco was on the back wheel again, teetering beyond the centre of gravity, before bringing it back at the last moment with deft taps on the rear brake. Back on two wheels he braked heavily into Park bend, leaning the bike into the apex with the grace of a ballerina dancing with the bike. My full bodyweight shifted forward but Battaini was unphased by his new 60-kilo backpack.

Emerging from the corner he opened the throttle, triggering an instantaneous mechanical reaction that released fire from the belly of the beast. We were in triple figures before I could pull my head free from the G-force pinning it back, and even looking from left to right was a challenge – not that it mattered as trackside was but a blur.

Passing the house, the front wheel lifted once more. I was prepared this time, but nonetheless as the front wheel dipped back towards the ground, the motion sent me flying from my seat. As we braked into Molecomb, I sat perched on the plastic hump that separated us, feet off the pegs, my vice-like grip the only thing keeping me on the bike. ‘Now would be a really bad time for cramp,’ the devil on my shoulder whispered.

Fear was never a factor – I knew all along that Franco was in control – but that didn’t stop a cocktail of catecholamines rushing through my body as I clung on for, quite literally, my life.

A brief lull through the infamous Molecomb was followed by a quick overtake, leaving a vintage machine trailing in our wake. Out of the small chicane Franco gave it one last spurt of jaw-dropping acceleration. As he pushed 140mph alongside the flint wall, the immense G-force threatened to wrench my arms from their sockets, and my sweaty hands slipped inside my gloves. He barely closed the throttle through Carnes Seat and Birdless Grove, hitting both apexes with an accuracy only a world championship level racer could possess.

And then it was over. As we passed underneath the chequered flag on the back wheel, my heart was pumping and an inextinguishable grin took over my face. The Desmosedici hillclimb had taken less than a minute but the resulting rush lasted the entire day…

Photography by Joe Harding, Nick Dungan and Jochen Van Cauwenberge.