{"id":497962,"date":"2026-02-23T02:42:14","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T02:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/497962\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T02:42:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T02:42:14","slug":"fim-president-jorge-viegas-on-why-phillip-island-lost-motogp-and-what-might-replace-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/497962\/","title":{"rendered":"FIM President Jorge Viegas on why Phillip Island lost MotoGP, and what might replace it…"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFIM President Jorge Viegas Interviewed at Phillip Island<\/p>\n

Trev sat down with FIM President Jorge Viegas at Phillip Island on the weekend to discuss the subject that had been frothing across everyone\u2019s lips since we broke the story that the seaside Victorian venue and the Australian Grand Prix Corporation had lost the rights to host the Australian round of the MotoGP World Championship to South Australia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Viegas On Phillip Island<\/p>\n

Trev: The big news with MotoGP, leaving Phillip Island and heading to South Australia, what\u2019s your reflection on the change?<\/p>\n

Jorge Viegas: \u201cI mean, it\u2019s obvious that this would happen one day or the other, when the discussion has to do with the promotion of the race and the conditions of Phillip Island. This was asked 10 years ago, that they should improve the facilities here, and every year they said, \u2018Yeah, yeah, yeah, we will do it\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it never happened, so now it\u2019s gone, because Adelaide made a good proposal\u2026 It\u2019s not Dorna anymore, it\u2019s an entertainment group, the promoter, they are intending to do a good show there, and we know that MotoGP intends to grow, with the acquisition from Liberty, they are really interested in making MotoGP bigger. We need to conquer new public, new spectators.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Image of the 2025 Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix<\/p>\n

\u201cAs to Phillip Island, everybody loves this track. I love to come here, but if you want to invite people, if you want to make something different, there are no hotels, there\u2019s nothing. It\u2019s really difficult.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I think this is, let\u2019s say, commercial based decision, but we can understand it. Everybody is sorry to lose Phillip Island in the calendar, obviously, but the last talk between Ezpeleta with Mr Fox, it was you do the facilities and then we\u2019ll talk about coming back. It\u2019s not a goodbye forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Official weekend attendance figures quoted 47,532 spectators at the 2026 Phillip Island World Superbike round<\/p>\n

Trev: The World Superbike contract runs through to 2027 for Phillip Island. Do you think Phillip Island has much chance of holding onto World Superbike?<\/p>\n

Viegas: \u201cI cannot tell you the full story, because it\u2019s still confidential, but I would like Superbike to remain here, but maybe not.\u201d<\/p>\n

What could be next for Phillip Island?<\/p>\n

Trev: I believe you might have spoken to an Australian GP Corporation representative here, along with Motorcycling Australia\u2019s Peter Doyle. Are you putting your heads together to see if there\u2019s something you can bring to Phillip Island?<\/p>\n

Viegas: \u201cWe intend to bring in the 2028 FIM Intercontinental Games. We are really, really committed to bringing the Intercontinental Games here, to Phillip Island, including Motocross.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Team Oceania secured third place in the inaugural intercontinental event in Spain<\/p>\n

\u201cI would like very much to do this. We have a good Motocross track not far from here (Wonthaggi), but I\u2019d like to do it inside Phillip Island circuit if we can, so that the pilots are all together, road and off-road in the same paddock. This would be great. And this is my hope.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>FIM Europe won the first-ever FIM Intercontinental Games at Jerez in 2024<\/p>\n

\u201cI am also investigating the possibility of bringing the FIM Awards Gala to Victoria at some time in the not too distant future, perhaps even in conjunction with the FIM Intercontinental Games.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>FIM President Jorge Viegas with Motorcycling Australia\u2019s Peter Doyle at the FIM Awards Gala earlier this year in Switzerland.
Viegas would also like to bring the awards ceremony to Victoria<\/p>\n

\u201cThe World Endurance Championship are looking for new venues, so why not bring the endurance race here? It would be great, eight hours. Why not?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Could an FIM World Endurance \u2018Eight Hours of Phillip Island\u2019 be on the cards\u2026?
The FIM would like to see it happen<\/p>\n

Trev: So this is going to be the litmus test in Adelaide, and the first sort of modern street circuit for MotoGP?<\/p>\n

Viegas: \u201cI have not been there, I am going to speak next Friday to our safety officer, Tome (Alfonso Ezpeleta), as he is the guy who has to homologate. All the homologation of the tracks is by FIM, the facilities the promoter needs, and the conditions of the track.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not going to homologate the track if it\u2019s not absolutely safe, that\u2019s for sure. I was told it\u2019s built in the centre of Adelaide, in the park, rather than a really old school street circuit. So if it has all the conditions of safety, I am happy with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Early drawings of the Adelaide layout as shown at the official announcement last week<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FIM President Jorge Viegas Interviewed at Phillip Island Trev sat down with FIM President Jorge Viegas at Phillip…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":497963,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[250602,64,63,16482,250603,250604,250605,5745,250606,250607,250608,806,805,803,804,250609,134245,250610,85,246671],"class_list":{"0":"post-497962","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-adelaide-street-race","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-grand-prix","12":"tag-eight-hours-of-phillip-island","13":"tag-jorge-viegas","14":"tag-liverty-media-motogp","15":"tag-motogp","16":"tag-motogp-2026","17":"tag-motogp-australia","18":"tag-motogp-sports-entertainment-group","19":"tag-motor","20":"tag-motor-sports","21":"tag-motosport","22":"tag-motosports","23":"tag-mseg","24":"tag-phillip-island","25":"tag-phillip-island-motogp","26":"tag-sports","27":"tag-the-bend-motorsport-park"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497962","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=497962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497962\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/497963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}