When it comes to snarling, red, Italian-built racing machines, there has for many years been only one name that counts - Ferrari.
But since a 21-year-old Australian began winning MotoGP grand prix races on a scarlet motorbike this year, another name is starting to impress itself on sports fans and connoisseurs of cool.
Riding a Ducati bike that everyone admits is the fastest around, Casey Stoner has won three of the four MotoGP races held so far this season. Ducati now leads both the riders and constructors standings.
Pundits are wondering just how far Ducati can go in its bid to break the stranglehold that Honda and Yamaha have had on the top flight of motorcycling for years.
"For this season, we still see ourselves as an outsider team. But we have a long-term project here and we're aiming very high," Ducati racing chief Claudio Domenicali told ANSA.
Ducati, which is based just 40 km from Ferrari's base in Maranello, is still a long way from the success that the four-wheeled team has achieved in the last ten years in Formula 1.
But it's going in the right direction. The straight-line speed of Ducati's GP6 bike, the result of a 2002 decision to concentrate on power even at the expense of some handling, has been in great evidence so far this season.
After the Shanghai race last weekend, when Stoner hurtled along the long straight at a record 337km/h, seven-times world champ Valentino Rossi said he'd never seen a bike like it.
Predictably, Ducati doesn't mind the comparisons being drawn between it and Ferrari. "Ferrari has achieved exceptional results on the track because of great organisation and technical ability - we too aim at these qualities," said Domenicali.
He also drew attention to what he called the "emotive charge" attached to the two brands, symbolised by the arresting red livery. He noted that Ferrari and Ducati even had similar sponsors - in fact both teams sport three of the same logos on their racing machines.
A PLACE IN MOTORCYLING HISTORY.
Ducati's recent success in MotoGP, a category it only entered in 2003, comes on the back of its long dominance of the Superbike category, which uses commercial models instead of experimental ones.
In fact the Italian group has a long record of racing prowess. In the 1960s, Ducati earned its place in motorcycling history by producing the then fastest 250 cc road bike available, the Mach 1.
Compared to the Japanese behemoths against which it is now racing in MotoGP, Ducati is a dwarf in industrial terms. Honda produces 10 million bikes a year, Yamaha 4.5 million. Ducati last year produced just over 31,000.
The 800cc MotoGP bike was the creation of a 35-member team of Ducati technicians which pales in comparison to the three thousand staff employed by Honda to build racing bikes.
Size - or lack of it - is another parallel with Ferrari, which produces about 5,600 cars worldwide while the parent companies of its Formula 1 rivals churn out millions.
Ferrari's success on the track is widely recognised as a crucial part of its sexy image around the world. It's an image that you can only win with success in the top class, which is why Ducati entered MotoGP in 2003
"Racing at the MotoGP level gives the brand a certain glamour that you can't get any other way. It's difficult to quantify the effect of this on business but sales of our new 'red' bike, the 1098, are going very well," said Domenicali.
Whether results on the race track will in fact translate into added sales in the showroom remains to be seen. Investors seem to think they will. After Stoner's last win in Shanghai, Ducati shares jumped 2% on the Milan stock market.
Success on the track seems to be coming just as the Ducati group's industrial activity pulls out of a difficult three years. The company said in March that this year it should post its first net profit since 2003.
