{"id":487803,"date":"2026-02-18T11:29:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T11:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/487803\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T11:29:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T11:29:10","slug":"victoria-loses-australian-motogp-with-2026-race-to-be-last-in-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/487803\/","title":{"rendered":"Victoria loses Australian MotoGP with 2026 race to be last in state"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix will be held at the iconic Phillip Island circuit for the last time this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The decision comes 24 hours after the Victorian government offered additional funds<\/a> to keep the MotoGP event at Phillip Island.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Minister for Sports and Events Steve Dimopoulos confirmed the state government would not budge on the event organiser’s request to move the event to Melbourne’s Albert Park.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We know that we could have kept [the race] in Victoria, had we sold out Phillip Island. We were never willing to sell out Phillip Island,” Mr Dimopoulos said.<\/p>\n

“We met every other request. We met the licence fee, we met everything else, in fact, went beyond it.”<\/p>\n

Mr Dimopoulos said he was aware of where the race would be held beyond 2027, but would not reveal that information.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I do. I’m not telling you. It’s not my news to share,” he said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

The new home for the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix has not been announced. (AP: Andy Brownbill)<\/p>\n

Bass Coast Mayor Rochelle Halstead said the news was disappointing, but she hoped the state government would commit funds to fill the economic void left by the race.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We are very, very disappointed and are turning to the government to look to an event that will be of the same calibre,” she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It doesn’t need to be in motorsport, it can be in the arts or in music. That’s what we’ll be\u00a0looking at.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“This will leave a very large economic hole, especially for our small businesses.”<\/p>\n

A 2023 economic impact report showed the annual event was worth more than $29 million to the state’s economy and supported 284 full-time jobs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Aerial<\/p>\n

Phillip Island was home to the MotoGP for almost 30 years. (Supplied: Ading Attamimi)<\/p>\n

‘Desperately disappointing’<\/p>\n

Mary Aldred, federal Liberal member for Monash \u2014 an electorate which includes Phillip Island \u2014\u00a0said the loss of the race was a tragedy for the Phillip Island economy and community, and she would explore options to support the region in the wake of the loss.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I’ll be investigating that federally with a number of federal government ministers to see what can be done, but this is a major event. It’s a major generator of revenue, of jobs, of economic activity,” Ms Aldred said.<\/p>\n

“We’ve got the infrastructure there. We’ve got a world-class track ready to be used, and it is just such a shame that the Victorian government has seen this flight to another state or another country, but it’s desperately disappointing.”<\/p>\n

MotoGP Sports Entertainment Group has been contacted for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix will be held at the iconic Phillip Island circuit for the last time…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,5745,806,805,233077,824,803,804,822,246694,85],"class_list":["post-487803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-motogp","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motorbikes","tag-motorsport","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-racing","tag-riding","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}