Daytona Moto2 765 | Photo credits: Visordown
2019 marks the beginning of a new era on the intermediate class of the World Championship, as Moto2 teams are now racing bikes fitted with Triumph 765 cc three-cylinder engines instead of the inline-four 600 cc engines supplied by Honda. Of course, this means bikes that are able to perform better than ever before, and the new Triumph engine has gathered high praises from teams and riders.
The Moto2 Triumph engine is basically a tuned version of the engine we find on the current Street Triple 765. But although the engine is basically the same, Triumph made significant changes to its internals, and that has made the engine power pass the 150 hp mark that MotoGP organizers asked when Triumph was chosen to replace Honda as the Moto2 engine supplier.
Triumph changed more than 80 parts on this engine, and the results were impressive from the start. At the pre-season test in Jerez, many riders were able to lap the Spanish circuit under the lap record, and at the first race of the season, in Qatar, Swiss rider Thomas Luthi was able to lap Losail seven-tenths faster than the previous record.
Since the new Triumph engine has bigger displacement and power, it’s no surprise that lap times are faster. But even so, the new Moto2 Triumph powered bikes are getting really fast!
At Losail, the Moto2 bikes were reaching speeds of 294,4 km/h, a new speed record for this class, more than 11 km/h faster than the year before, and that’s a huge evolution regarding the outright performance of a Moto2 bike.
Well, Triumph has been working hard to improve even further on these numbers, and this season the British manufacturer from Hinckley has set a new speed goal: Get to 300 km/h!
Apart from Qatar, where they got a little over 294 km/h, Triumph still has three chances to do this in the 2019 Moto2 season.
In Mugello is where all the bikes reach the highest speed during the season. In 2018, the Moto2 bikes were getting up to almost 290 km/h, and with such a long main straight, that’s the best chance Triumph will get to beat the 300 km/h target.
Photo credits: Telegraph
But there are two other chances, one in Spain, and another in Australia.
In Spain, the Barcelona-Catalunya circuit also features a very long main straight, a bit downhill at the end before entering the first corner. That, mixed with a very fast last corner, will allow Moto2 riders to reach high speeds on the main straight and before the braking point for turn 1, we might see the Triumph-powered Moto2 bikes reach 300 km/h speeds. The last chance will be during the Australia GP in Phillip Island. The track near the sea also features a very long main straight after a really fast last corner, so the Moto2 speeds will probably get up to 300 km/h easily.
These insane speeds from a four-stroke 765 cc three-cylinder engine show just how hard Triumph has worked to create this new Moto2 engine. In fact, we probably couldn’t ask for anything better than this for the intermediate class of the World Championship.