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Live sport on SN this weekendSA Premier confident first-ever MotoGP street circuit will meet safety requirements
Nicholas Quinlan • February 22nd, 2026 4:18 am
After signing the contract that’ll bring the MotoGP’s first-ever street circuit race to Adelaide, South Australian Premier Peter Malinauskas strongly believes that the circuit will pass all required safety features to be racing in 2027.
In a move that will help make for some revenge for South Australians aggrieved by Jeff Kennett and Ron Walker taking the F1 Grand Prix from Adelaide to Albert Park in 1993, the South Australian Government has signed an agreement with Dorna Sports and Liberty Media (owners of MotoGP) that will see the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix take place around the streets of Adelaide for six years starting from 2027.
The move will mean that the event will have a new home for the first time in 30 years after being situated in Phillip Island, Victoria, following the state government's decision to not move the event to Albert Park.
With the announcement of the race taking place on a street circuit, safety concerns have been raised by fans and experts alike, given the potential proximity between the bikes and the barriers alongside the runoff space the track would have.
But with the amount of detail done, Malinauskas is confident that the circuit will meet the required regulations set by the Federation Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM).
“I’m not the engineer, I’m not the track designer,” he told SEN’s Locked In with Kane Cornes.
“I think there is a lot of would-be experts out there on social media already.
“What you’ve got to do is put your faith in the experts and the regulators.
“FIA govern motorsport internationally and do the regulation of tracks in terms of safety for four-wheel events. FIM do it for two-wheel events, and they’ll be independently making all of their assessments against the work that has already been done.
“We have every confidence that those approvals will come through (from FIM), given the extraordinary amount of detail that has been gone through.
“We’re at a point now where we’ve got the confidence that this will meet the appropriate approvals.”
MotoGP’s sporting director, Carlos Ezpeleta, has also come out and stated his confidence that the track will be safe for racing.
“Safety for us is not subjective. We measure everything in detail mathematically with tools that have been developed over the years, and we’re really, really happy about the final solution here,” he said.
The proposed track contains 18 corners with a distance of 4.195 kilometres per lap.
Phillip Island will hold one more MotoGP event before the race heads to Adelaide.
That will take place between October 23 and 25 as the 19th round of the 22-round event.
