For decades, Australia’s MotoGP identity has been inseparable from Phillip Island: sweeping corners, huge elevation changes, Bass Strait and one of the fastest natural road circuits in the world. But PI didn’t lose MotoGP because of the racetrack. That may be the hardest part for Australian race fans to swallow.
While the track remained world class, the infrastructure around it increasingly did not. Ageing facilities and the investment required to bring the venue up to the standards demanded by modern MotoGP ultimately helped bring an extraordinary era to an end.
So Adelaide arrives in 2027 carrying an unenviable burden. Its 4.13km street circuit can be fast, spectacular and brilliantly successful, but nobody expects it to replace Phillip Island in the hearts of Australian race fans overnight.
Perhaps it shouldn’t try. This is something new: an Australian GP built around a city rather than one windswept patch of land above Bass Strait. We can be excited about what comes next while still feeling sad about what we’re leaving behind.
In the end, the real cost of Adelaide hosting MotoGP for the first time is $15m. That’s the unexpected sweetener the Labor State Government tipped into this project to split its determined and very vocal parklands protesters down the centre. The $95m circuit was always going to go ahead, but no one, especially the Adelaide City Council and a range of local opponents, expected the government to fund city environmental projects they had been trying to get off the ground for years.
As stated at the unveiling of the final track layout, these involve “greening, rewilding and revitalising projects to restore habitat and strengthen biodiversity”. Even Conservation Council SA chief executive Kirsty Bevan was stunned by the announcement. “It really floors me every time I think about it,” she told local media. Bevan leads SA’s main environment lobby and had held face-to-face talks with Premier Peter Malinauskas, voicing her concerns about the impact MotoGP would have on the parklands.
Already, some unconvinced opponents have accused Bevan of having “sold out”, but she has reminded them her organisation is “non-political, non-partisan”.
The unveiling of the final circuit plans was held in a city arts venue hermetically sealed against any outside protesters, with media only informed of the announcement an hour before Malinauskas, in rolled-up shirt sleeves, made the virtual reality presentation.
Behind the slick eye candy, some very hard work had gone on, with highly paid and credentialled advisers working shoulder-to-shoulder with the premier to develop this surprise strategy.
Funding several projects outside MotoGP has the effect of making Adelaide City Council look irrelevant when it comes to managing the future of its sprawling parklands. By financing these extra projects, the government is calling the shots and will continue to.
Malinauskas is one of Australia’s most popular politicians. His approval rating actually increased during a vociferous parklands protest that saw a 40,000-strong petition presented to parliament.
The government’s recent massive investment in sport could well see the MotoGP project become the jewel in its crown, as the virtual reality lap of the circuit was truly impressive. Not only was the AI-developed rider taking sweeping lines, rather than the stop-start mayhem of a typical street racetrack, it roared past Aussie gum trees towards a modern city skyline, then turned to pass those famous Victorian-era buildings the world has seen before when Adelaide hosted F1.
This brought back all the excitement of the city’s old F1 era, when fans travelled from around the world to soak up a sport few of them really understood but soon became addicted to the whiff of a high-octane spectacle with riveted-on celebrity star power.
This is the prototype of a new type of circuit Liberty Media wants to introduce at several rounds over the next few years. If South Australia delivers on this as well as the presentation suggested, the 2027 Adelaide MotoGP will be hard to top.
Reaction: good, bad and ugly!
Jane lomax-Smith, lord mayor
“I am pleased that the Premier’s office has agreed to make senior officials available to brief our Council as soon as possible. The next step for us is for our Administration to do a proper analysis and provide robust advice so we can make informed representations to the State Government during their consultation.”
Loris Capirossi, MotoGP Race Direction Representative
“We worked to try to find the best solution for safety and I think, in the end, because more than 75 per cent is inside of the park it’s really safe because it’s a permanent circuit. ”
Mat Oxley, MotoGP journalist
“A (virtual) lap should shut up those saying this will be a killer street circuit. I love it and I hate it. I love it because I love motorcycle racing, it’s been my life. I hate it because I live in a city, next to wooded parkland and I REALLY wouldn’t want the park paved with asphalt.”
John Schumann, music legend
“It’s a three-card trick. The South Australian Conservation Council might have fallen for it, Trees For Life might have fallen for it but there’s lots and lots of us who see right through it.”
Mark Skaife, Touring Cars champ and circuit adviser
“The new circuit design takes things to another level. It will be super-quick with lots of overtaking opportunities and, in Supercars configuration, the kerbs will be punishing and the walls will be inches away. The new Senna Chicane will be unforgiving, Brewery Bend will be epic and the new start-finish section in Victoria Park adds more noise and colour to what is already the best event on the calendar.”
Stefan Bartholomaeus, Speedcafe Editor
“Uprooting the Senna Chicane feels particularly sacrilegious, given the F1 heritage it represents and its key place in the Supercars spectacle.”
Stuart O’Grady, Tour Down Under Race Director
“The TDU was born back in 1999 out of the departure of the Formula One Grand Prix, so it’s exciting to have cycling on the track that will now also be used for the Australian MotoGP.”
Carlos Ezpeleta, Deputy CEO MotoGP Sports Entertainment Group
“The run-offs are calculated using a tool developed with the University of Padova six years ago, accounting for expected relative speeds. The majority of the track’s corners lie outside normal road use, ensuring safety and optimal racing conditions… Adelaide offers a different level of event potential unmatched by any other venue on our calendar.”
