Author: Auto Express
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Audi now owns Ducati, so we decided to race the brands' most powerful models, the Audi RS6 and the Ducati 1199 Panigale R. Subscribe to our YouTube channel http://bit.ly/11Ad1j1 Subscribe to the mag http://subscribe.autoexpress.co.uk/yt Audi now owns Ducati - so we thought it'd be fun to have a track battle between the most powerful Audi you can order and the most powerful Ducati you can order. The 1199 Panigale R has a 1.2-litre V-Twin with 195bhp. There is an even hotter Superlegera version but it’s sold out, so this R is the most powerful Ducati you can buy. The Audi RS6 has a 4.0-litre bi-turbo V8 with 560hp – that’s 10 horses more than an R8 V10 Plus, which is why we have chosen the estate for this track battle. Auto Express’s Owen Mildenhall will be in the RS6 while Alastair Fagan from Fast Bikes magazine will be on the Panigale. With 1032bhp per tonne the Ducati did 0-60mph in 3.2 seconds and the standing quarter in 10.5 seconds compared to 4.3 and 12.4 seconds for the 289bhp per tonne Audi. The bike clearly ruled in a straight line- but let’s see what happens when we add some corners... For a two-tonne car it's pretty impressive. It's got loads of grip, and the fact that the fan was still going a long time after we finished the race is an indication of how tightly packaged everything is under this bonnet, with a big V8 in there. There's loads of grip and massive straight-line performance. It's not the most thrilling car to drive on track because you can't really do much with it, it's not very adjustable. It just grips and that's it. You can't disable the stability control either, but there's no doubting it's really fast. The bike feels fast no matter what you do and no matter how fast you ride it, you always think you'll come back to a lap record - but as proven in the past it's not always correct. On this occasion, the bike beat the car - but in the car's defence, there's one thing you can do with it that you can't do with the bike: take the whole crew out for a hot lap!