Mutt1979, have you ridden a 1299 yet? if so, can you give us your thoughts on comparison between that and your R.
My ordered S is due to arrive tomorrow, so by the time the dealer fits the Akra Evo system and other carbon bits and pieces and resprings the front and rear it will be a week. They are more than happy for me to change over onto an R (I just traded my 14R in) if I wish, but I need to make a decision now and I am just so torn - the whole reason I have traded my 14R in is because I think it was a far better race bike than street bike because it only really came alive in the higher RPM (8-9,000 rpm plus) and was some what lifeless and did not like the lower rpm ranges which you more often than not see on the street going around and accelerating out of corners etc.
I wish I could ride both before making a decision but that will never happen as Ducati Australia will not have demos until at least December.....
G'day buttnekid, I know you're after some real world comparison and I can't provide that, but I also know you're up against a deadline to make your choice. I went through the same dilemma ref choosing between the 1299 S or Panigale R (2015). I ended up choosing the 1299 S (so I'm already biased
, but I thought I'd share with you my analysis of the power curves. I know, I know, power curves are not as important as some believe them to be, and a person's perception of power delivery is also affected by lots of things (speed, acceleration, noise, etc.), but when you're sitting at the bottom of the world waiting for a bike there's sometimes not much else to go on.
All figures I've used are based on Ducati published data (so I assume there is reasonable relative consistency), but I had to use some "licence" at very near redline because of lacking data. And I'm including 1199 and 1199 R figures here for the potential interest of others. I'm not going to complicate things with analysis of weight difference of the bikes.
So, the 1st curve comparison is Power vs RPM for 1199, 1199 R, 1299 and Panigale R (2015). It's immediately obvious that the 1299 makes more power at lower RPM. This is the curve that most people look at, but it doesn't tell the whole story and TBH I don't pay much attention to it (the curve of Torque vs RPM is even less relevant IMHO).
The 2nd curve comparison is Power vs % RPM for 1199, 1199 R, 1299 and Panigale R (2015). The % RPM values are normalised to each bike engine's redline RPM. I won't comment on this one either. Instead, I'll split it into 2 sections: one for the higher RPM band and one for the lower.
The 3rd curve comparison is the same as the 2nd except that it's only looking at % RPM above ~65%. Why? Because, all the Panigales have the same relative gear ratios and the largest % change in ratio is 31.6%(between 1st and 2nd gears). So, changing gear at near redline in 1st gear will drop the engine speed back to ~65% of redline RPM. So, this curve shows the relative power of each bike when ridden hard and well. It clearly shows the advantage that the Panigale R (2015) should have on the track (noting that this curve ignores start line launch).
The 4th curve comparison is the same as the 2nd/3rd except that it shows % RPM below ~65%. Why? Because, for street riding you can often find yourself in the "wrong gear" (for various reasons), and for a lot of folk there is some reluctance to click down the gears to get the engine into its proper operating zone prior to accelerating. Instead, there's a tendency to just apply WOT and wait (impatiently). This curve shows some advantage for the 1299 when operating outside of the engine's proper operating zone.
The 5th curve comparison shows Power vs Bike Speed, with the speed normalised with respect to the Panigale R (2015). So, this curve shows the power for any speed and chosen gear combination, and it also takes account of different final drive ratios of the various bikes (15/39 for the 1199 and 1299, and 15/41 for the 1199 R and Panigale R (2015)). It really tells the story of the typical roll-on comparison scenario (for those interested in that kinda thing), and since bike speed when initially applying WOT is often determined by the previous corner (and that would be relatively similar for all these bikes) this curve can be used to say something about relative acceleration out of a given corner. What's most obvious here is that 1299 holds some advantage from 30% to 60%, then there's not much difference between 1199 R, 1299 and Panigale R (2015) from 60% to 70%, from 70% to 90% it's line-ball between 1299 and Panigale R (2015), and above 90% it's Panigale R (2015) all the way.
Buttnekid, as I said, I ended up choosing the 1299 S, but I hope you might get something out of all that.
P.S. As I re-read the above I realize I'm going stir-crazy waiting here these final few days - apologies for the above to anyone who is actually riding/enjoying their bike.
