Peter Hickman, Smiths Racing swap Triumph with Yamaha for TT 2020

Smiths Racing has confirmed it is ending its long-running association with Triumph in favour of a switch to Yamaha machinery for the 2020 Isle of Man TT Supersport class.

The Gloucester-based team has enjoyed significant success with the middleweight Triumph 675 Daytona over the years, stretching back to the team’s participation in the British Supersport Championship when it secured titles in 2012 and 2014.

More recently, Smiths Racing and its talisman Peter Hickman have run the triple-cylinder machine to Supersport victory on the TT as recently as 2019, while he also dominated the Ulster GP Supersport classes.

However, while Smiths Racing is satisfied with the competitiveness of the model, the Triumph Daytona 675 is no longer in production, making parts increasingly scarce.

It is for this reason that Smiths Racing is switching its allegiance to Yamaha and its R6, which currently dominates the World and British Supersport classes, and was also a winning machine at the 2019 Isle of Man TT.

"We’ve made the decision to change from the Triumph to the Yamaha in the Supersport class for the International road races which will obviously be a bit different to the last three years.

“We've had an awesome time with the Triumph and it's been absolutely brilliant with the win at last year's TT and all three victories at the Ulster Grand Prix being phenomenal.

“The little Daytona has done a fantastic job but, unfortunately, it's a little bit long in the tooth now so to try and move with the times and keep up with what everyone else is doing we've decided to move over to the Yamaha. I've never actually raced an R6 before so I'm really looking forward to jumping on it to see what we can do." 

Hickman will compete in all two-wheel classes of the 2020 Isle of Man, riding the factory-backed BMW S1000RR in the Superbike classes and a Norton Superlight in the Lightweight TT.