Ever since Triumph was tipped to become the new engine supplier for the Moto2 Championship, there have been rumblings and speculations about what the British brand’s over-arching plan was for the sport biking space.
The engine being used for Moto2 is the same 765cc power plant found in the Triumph Street Triple 765 – lightly massaged for racing duty, of course.
Coupling that to the fact that Triumph quietly killing the Daytona 675 motorcycle earlier this year, the British brand seemingly has all the ingredients it needs in order to make a new middleweight sport bike – something that could give the Suzuki GSX-R750 or MV Agusta F3 800 a run for their money.
In what will surely be an unpopular report, however, we regret to inform you that there will not be a Triumph Daytona 765 motorcycle for the 2019 model year, despite all the dots that seemingly could be connected, and all the speculation made by other publications and online forums.
Instead, this news will mean that Triumph will go a second year without a Daytona model in its lineup, though there is some hope for the 2020 model year…that point in time likely being the reason Triumph is reluctant to jump back into the supersport game right away.
The 2020 model year sees the beginning of Euro5 emission standards in Europe, and marks yet another hurdle that motorcycle manufacturers must jump through if they want to continue making street bikes for the European market.
With the transition to Euro4 just recently completed, however, this has been a quick succession of benchmarks for the motorcycle industry to meet, and those benchmarks are not without their technical and monetary challenges.
Electing to skip the process of making the Daytona platform Euro4 compliant, and moving straight to Euro5 homologation could be Triumph’s strategy, and they are not alone in the motorcycle industry with that thought process. If the case, it could explain Triumph’s plan with the Daytona, Moto2, and Euro5.
With the Moto2 Championship set to switch to Triumph’s engines in 2019, that would give Triumph a year of solid marketing in the intermediate class to promote its three-cylinder hardware – building anticipation and demand for a road-going version of the race bikes seen on TV.
This would tee-up Triumph nicely for a 2020 model year debut of a supersport range, likely with a 675cc homologation bike for racing, and a 765cc street bike for the masses, borrowing the budding two-displacement strategy from the superbike segment.
Euro5 compliant, and thus future-proof, the new machines would presumably build off the goodwill generated by the Moto2-spec bikes, and include cutting-edge electronics.
If all of this comes true, then Triumph’s bid to be the spec-engine supplier for Moto2 starts to make considerable sense, with the British brand capitalizing on the racing class more so than Honda ever did.
Source: Bothan Spies
