The "baby" Panigale has surfaced

So this little gem has been spotted parked on an Italian street just weeks ahead of the official launch of the bike.

This bike is a smaller capacity version of the Panigale 1199 and will have a series of changes that cut development costs in an effort to reduce the price of the bike for us. This bike will replace the ageing 848 model range.

The most obvious change is the double-sided swingarm instead of the single sider seen on the 1199. The bike also has lower specification suspension and different wheels. The rumor mill also reports they are using a minaturised version of the 1199 motor, complete with ultr-short stroke for incredibly high revs in V-twin terms. The word is this will deliver somewhere in the region of 150bhp. Of course being an 899cc capacity limits your racing prospect but this bike could turn out to be a much friendlier road bike.

The bike you see here, which was spotted by Italian magazine Motociclismo, is clearly no rough-and-ready prototype. It's finished. Right down to the badges. There's just a piece of red Gaffa tape over the bit that usually says ‟1199” on the existing Panigale. Presumably that's because on this bike the sticker reads 899, and it would be a bit of a giveaway. That bunch of cabling strapped to the tank shows that the bike is fully wired up for datalogging as the factory completes some last-minute tests, but it really looks like the bike is in production, or at least pre-production, already.

The 899 is expected to carry over almost all of the electronic systems from the bigger bike; this means traction control, switchable riding modes, ABS and a quickshifter are almost certain to be fitted. It's not known if the LED headlights from the 1199 are destined for this bike but it seems likely as the bike was designed around LED lights rather than a traditional halogen set-up.

The rumor price tag is still quite high though with the base 1199 Panigale ABS costing £16k($20,800) , even if the 899 is £13-£14k($17,500) it will still represent a significant saving compared to the larger machine.