In October 2023, Ducati announced its plan to enter the motocross and off-road market with a range of motorcycles that will be available for purchase in the next few years. Now, the Italian manufacturer’s dirt bike racing division, Ducati Corse Off-Road, has unveiled two prototypes of the Desmo450 MX (the model name of its first motocross bike) that will be piloted by Antonio Cairoli and Alessandro Lupino in the 2024 Italian Motocross Championship.
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Historically, Ducati is known for its steel-trellis frames, but the company continues to show it is agnostic about best design for performance in a category. So while many Ducatis retain steel-trellis frames (as on the DesertX), plenty of its sportbikes use aluminum frames. We can clearly see Ducati went with a twin-spar aluminum frame for the Desmo450 MX, which isn’t an uncommon choice in the full-size dirt bike realm as Japanese manufacturers and Triumph employ aluminum frames on their respective motocross models as well.
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Ducati declares its goal for the first season of racing the prototype dirt bikes is mainly to acquire data and information to contribute to development of the Desmo450 MX, which is scheduled to go into production in the second half of 2025. Cairoli and Lupino’s competition debut aboard the machines will be at Circuito Internazionale Città di Mantova on March 16 and 17, 2024.
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