Australia's lone MotoGP track, Phillip Island, is no more. Long live, Phillip Island!
And I really mean that, as MotoGP's brass recently unveiled the circuit's replacement, Adelaide, which is set to become the series' lone street circuit and...it looks like a slog fest, honestly.
Unveiled over the weekend during the Aragon GP, the Adelaide racetrack is set to measure 4.13 kilometers (2.57 miles) and feature 15 turns, which doesn't sound all that bad upon first hearing, right? Especially when you consider that the designers were going for an homage to Adelaide's old Formula 1 track layout, featuring many of the OG corners that made it cool.
Well, you'd be wrong, because as soon as you look at the actual track layout, it's basically a straight that leads to a 90-degree turn, another straight, another 90-degree turn, and so on and so on. The track looks like a set of drag races stopped by a handful of too tight chicanes and no place for real wheel-to-wheel action.
Y'all thought Hermann Tikle's circuit layouts were bad? You ain't seen nothing.
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"The proposed $96m circuit is a result of months of close collaboration between MotoGP, the Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme (FIM) and partners in Adelaide, designed to deliver world-class racing while meeting the highest modern safety standards," says MotoGP, and the part you need to pay attention to in that statement is the last four words, i.e., "highest modern safety standards."
See, street circuits are inherently more dangerous than purpose-built tracks. There's less runoff, closer action to the barriers, less room for barriers, and less room to get things wrong. To meet the needs of keeping riders as safe as humanly possible, you need fewer high-speed corners and as much runoff as you can muster. That means fewer actual corners and more just 90-degree, slow-speed turns, followed by high-speed straights that end with massive runoff areas.
Good, fun, action-packed racing, that does not make.
Moreover, to make it safer for everyone, along with developing the area to even host the street race, Adelaide's government is working on removing, replacing, or relocating a huge number of trees, flora, and fauna in the area, which has riled a bunch of locals and also, again, sorta removes the element that makes street circuits interesting. I mean, imagine the Isle of Man TT without the stone walls, sharp green cliffs, and homes that run along the mountain loop. It wouldn't be the TT anymore, and that's why, while I'm a fan of street races in general, this looks so damn boring, I couldn't care less it was "a street circuit." You might as well just throw it onto the track again with this layout.
MotoGP says that "The vision for the project extends well beyond race weekend. With MotoGP initially returning to Adelaide each year through 2032, the event will act as a catalyst for enhancing the park lands and public spaces that form part of the circuit, creating a lasting legacy for residents, visitors and future major events." But do we need this type of eof circuit for the next five-ish years?
Eh. Phillip Island or Bathhurst. Now those would be fun races.
