Triumph Motorcycles has been awarded the Royal Automobile Club’s prestigious Torrens Trophy, in recognition of its work providing the standardised three-cylinder engine used by all 30 riders in the Moto2 Grand Prix World Championship.
The company has been supplying 765cc, Street Triple derived, powerplants to all teams competing in the intermediate class since 2019, replacing Honda as the standard engine supplier for the series. Triumph’s engines have covered more than a million racing kilometres in this period, largely without technical issues.
Barrie Baxter, Chairman of the Torrens Trophy Nominations Committee, explained the reasons behind the award. He said: “It gives us enormous pleasure to award the 2023 Torrens Trophy to Triumph for its amazing work in the Moto2 World Championship, motorcycling’s number two grand prix series. The company has provided engines for the entire Moto2 grid for the past five seasons, proving to the world that its engineering and technology can thrive in arguably the toughest bike racing series of them all.”
Triumph Motorcycles is the latest winner of the prestigious Torrens Trophy, which was first awarded in 1979 and has been given out annually since 2013, when Tom Sykes was given the trophy in recognition of winning that year’s Superbike World Championship. Other recent winners include racers Peter Hickman, Jonathan Rea and Cal Crutchlow, while the previous recipient was International Road Racing Teams Association (IRTA) boss Mike Trimby, who sadly died last summer. Triumph is the second manufacturer to receive the award, with BMW being recognised in 1989 for its pioneering work in introducing anti-lock braking systems to motorcycles.
Nick Bloor (pictured above with Royal Automobile Club Chairman Ben Cussons), Triumph Motorcycles’ Chief Executive, accepted the award on behalf of the Triumph team, commenting: “This award is a real honour, and a tribute to the hard work and passion of our Triumph Racing team. Our world class engineers are always looking at new ways to enhance the engine performance, from speed, power and torque, to revs, cylinder pressure and compression ratio. This has enabled us to deliver improvements on track each season, from shorter race times to faster top speeds, which has contributed to closer, even more exciting, racing.
“Moto2 is also an excellent platform to showcase the durability, reliability and class-leading performance of our 765 triple engines on the road. Over the last five years we’ve used the race engine programme to drive enhancements and gain insights that we’ve used to further develop and evolve our new Street Triple 765 range, which has successfully driven demand and sales across the world. It’s a partnership that we are excited to be continuing until 2029.”
Moto2 is the intermediate class of world championship Grand Prix racing. It was brought in for the 2010 season, replacing the old 250cc two-stroke category with a view to reducing costs and creating a fairer playing field. Initially using Honda CBR600RR based engines, with teams free to use their own prototype chassis design, the Triumph 765 triple has been mandatory in the world championship since 2019, as well as the Moto2 European championship for the past season. The 140bhp engines are lightly modified for racing use and are allocated to teams at random, with Spanish based company Externpro preparing the engines to identical specification and replacing them every three racing meetings – meaning each engine has to withstand around 1500km (930 miles) of racing abuse between refreshes.
The Torrens Trophy is awarded in memory of Arthur Bourne, a former motorcycling journalist who wrote under the pseudonym Torrens. Bourne was also Vice Chairman of the Royal Automobile Club and although the trophy has been awarded continuously for over a decade now, it is only given out when the nominations committee feels there is a worthy recipient. The award is given in a reception at the club, in London’s Pall Mall.
The committee consists of Chairman and ex-motorcycle racer Barrie Baxter, Royal Automobile Club Chairman Ben Cussons, two-time world superbike champion (and past Torrens winner) James Toseland, motorcycle journalist and TT winner Mat Oxley, commentator and former racer Steve Parrish, Arthur Bourne’s son Robert and Maria Costello, notable for previously being the fastest woman to lap the Isle of Man TT course.
