Adelaide streets tipped to take Phillip Island's MotoGP

PHILLIP Island’s loss is Adelaide’s gain, if you can believe the motorsports’ writers and an announcement that the Australian MotoGP will be staged on a street circuit in the City of Churches from 2027 or 2028 onwards could come this week.

According to ‘Trev’, writing for mcnews.com.au, the commercial context for motorsports has evolved towards street circuits in major cities enjoying the proximity of a bigger audience and wanted services.

This drive for change only shifted up a gear or two when Liberty Media, now rebranded as MotoGP Sports Entertainment Group, completed its acquisition of Dorna in July 2025

“Liberty Media’s portfolio also includes the Formula One World Championship, where street circuits in major metropolitan centres form a key component of the commercial model. The appeal is clear: proximity to CBD hospitality, corporate infrastructure, and premium entertainment assets that align with modern event economics.”

Having unsuccessfully pitched Albert Park to the Allan Government as the next venue for the Australian MotoGP, speculative efforts in South Australia suddenly came into sharp focus. Or was it so sudden?

Trev believes the South Australian Government is in the final stages of successfully signing off on a bid to host MotoGP on the streets of Adelaide from 2027 or 2028 if the lead time for setting up the street circuit is too tight.

This would open up the possibility of a one-year deal to race at “The Bend Motorsport Park" only one hour from the Adelaide CBD, along the South Eastern Freeway, 5kms east of the town of Tailem Bend.

The Bend circuit is the second longest motorsports track in the world, also offering hotel accommodation and camping facilities on site with an airport nearby.

If realised it would represent an ironic twist in competition for major sporting events between the two states after Jeff Kennett ‘stole’ the Formula 1 Grand Prix from the streets of Adelaide in 1993, with the promise of a street circuit at Albert Park.

Mcnews.com.au has also raised the spectre of the World Superbikes going the same way after 2028, to The Bend.

While the commercial allure of a city street circuit appears to have been the deciding factor, the call for more improvements at the Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit also appear to have been an issue.

Over the past three years, the State Government has underwritten a range of safety improvements at the track but calls for further works including modern pit lane infrastructure and spectator facilities were also being negotiated.

Aussie legend Mick Doohan, who won his first 500cc Motorcycle Grand Prix at Phillip Island in October 1998 said he could see the move from the Island circuit coming, following the loss on entertainment at the track, motorbike stands and other entertainment for the crowds.

As the Australian Open Tennis developments have demonstrated, the modern event crowd wants to party as well as see the sport.

The lack of desired facilities at Phillip Island, including onsite hotel accommodation, and the opportunity of taking the race to the crowds appears to have proved too much for the new GP rights holders and they’ve jumped, in spectacular style, this week.

Whether they complete the jump to Adelaide in the next few days only time will tell but it will make a welcome diversion for South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas after the debacle of the Adelaide Writers Week.

The Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit was in line to get some of the needed facilities if one of two proposals went ahead for either 173 rooms in the hotel and lodge accommodation under an application approved by the Bass Coast in 2000 or 382 units of accommodation in single, two-storey and three-storey linked blocks, plus an 18 hole golf course, golf club house and 250 person conference centre, knocked back by VCAT in April 2008.

VCAT ruled that the project, proposed by Linfox Property Group Inc, had not sufficiently acknowledged, respected and protected the environmental and landscape values of the site.

“We find that the scale, extent and position of the proposed group accommodation is too expansive in its breadth and would sit too prominently in its setting. The siting of the golf course would result in a development that is too close to the abutting coastline and coastal reserve and would interact with the reserve in an inappropriate manner.”

But VCAT also said that there was a reasonable expectation that the subject land adjacent to the GP Circuit could be developed with facilities that complimented the circuit, in a more integrated manner “respecting and protecting the special qualities of the environment within which the circuit sits”.