A few days ahead of its debut in an Italian regional motocross series, we now have a good look at Ducati’s Desmo450 MX motocross bike in action.
Alas, we don’t get a whole lot more than that, although our factory riding hero (test rider Antonio Cairoli) is happy to tell us how great the bike is, reminding us that yes, it does have a desmodromic top end system, unlike any other motocross manufacturer. And yet, Signore Cairoli is honest and says that he expects to find a lot of things to change before the bike hits showroom floors.
Really, it’s surprising to see Ducati’s quick turnaround on this project, from teased to racing in the Italian Motocross Pro Prestige MX1 Championship in only a few weeks. The team is quite pointedly a development project (it’s called the Ducati Corse R&D – Factory MX Team, so you know they expect to be Researching and Developing all season long).
But they’ve got the man for it. Cairoli is a European MX legend, with nine FIM titles including six in a row from 2009 through 2014, and he appears to be genuinely keen to test this machine… and he already makes it look pretty capable, as you can see above.
When the Italian motocross series kicks off in March, Alessandro Lupin will be the one actually riding the new 450. He was part of the same team as Cairoli in 2021’s Motocross of Nation championship, and they won the world title that year for Italy. In other words, they know how to work together.
It’s been a busy off-season for Ducati already, with two single-cylinder bikes released (we also got the Hypermotard 698 Mono). It looks like the company is seeing beyond the world of sportbikes, and ready to tackle the rest of the moto scene head-on. Good for them, and good for Europe—more competition is going to make everyone get better. What’s that saying about “Racing improving the breed”… ?
