It didn’t take long for a “spy photo” of the 2012 Ducati Streetfighter 848 to emerge from Bologna, and it looks like Ducati wants to tease out the yellow paint job it plans to bring to the smaller displacement Streetfighter. The five-bolt arrangement on the rear-wheel hub is a give away to the fact that an 848 motor lurks in the Streetfighter shown, as the current Streetfighter 1098 uses a six-bolt pattern because of the more powerful 155hp motor. With the Ducati Superbike 848 EVO motor making 140hp (and also sporting a five-bolt rear hub pattern), we can expect that the Ducati Streetfighter 848 to lose 10-15 ponies from its superbike compatriot.

The Streetfighter 848‘s components appear to be the cheaper Brembo radially-mounted calipers and the Marzoochi USD forks, both seemingly coming out of the Monster 1100 EVO common parts bin. As we predicted, Ducati is keeping the styling of its Streetfighter update the same, and is merely bringing the new motor options into the fold. We haven’t seen photos yet of the Ducati Streetfighter 1198, though it will look virtually the same, sans the fact it will need a valve adjustment only half as often as the current Streetfighter, thanks to its Testastretta 11° v-twin motor.

Of course there has to be a purpose for a spy photo, and in this case it would seem to be Ducati testing the waters with its Racing Yellow color scheme. Certainly a departure from the red, white, and black colors we’ve seen Ducati release in the past, we imagine the Bologna brigade wants to test the interwebs for some feedback on the new color option, so it doesn’t have to kill off a color choice after its been released to the public (like the company did with the white Diavel option, replacing it with the Ducati Diavel Diamond Black after pitchforks came out from Ducatisti).

Source: Ducati.ms via Ducati News Today