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Ducati Motor Holding SpA, the gang that makes the wonderful Ducati racing and roadgoing motorcycles, is preparing a radical new engine design to compete in this year's MotoGP Championship motorcycle roadracing series.

Ducati, renowned for its twin-cylinder engines, does not plan to take a back seat to competitors with multi-cylinder designs that MotoGP rules favor.

Rather than forego its heritage for twin-cylinder engines, Ducati developed the new Desmosedici Twinpulse engine to retain the essence of a twin-cylinder layout — yet it actually incorporates four pistons in a “double twin” arrangement.

Ducati's all-new 989-cc 4-stroke engine's “Twinpulse” design offers a “two-by-two” firing order that simultaneously lights off the two adjacent cylinders on either bank of the L-shaped engine vee.

The Twinpulse also retains the “desmodromic” valve actuation system that sees the valves open and close via a unique rocker arm/lever arrangement.