THIS IS WHAT A MOTOGP SHOULD BE – AND OURS SO ISN’T

People just don’t know what they don’t know.

 

How can they? Thus, they abide in ignorance, and thus it is also true to say ignorance is indeed, bliss. After all, while you remain blissfully and so complacently ignorant, all manner of sins may be committed upon you. All types of banal evils may be enacted, and you will accept them without question because you know no better.

This is how much of the world works. Ignorance and complacency is what stops the masses from turning on their keepers and rending them tooth and claw. Ignorance and complacency are the only things that prevent us from wearing the skins of our rulers as trophies.

And ignorance is the only thing that stops us flushing the Australian Grand Prix Corporation (AGPC) into the nearest sewerage outfall and propelling it out to sea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clearly, I would like to address this ignorance of ours. For I too, was once ignorant. And while I felt, as did many of you because we are not as stupid as our overlords wish we were, the Australian round of MotoGP was…well, somewhat of an internationally embarrassing charade of money-grubbing and incompetence (to put it charitably), I had no hard proof. I had never been to another MotoGP event. I could not actually compare the events. And while I have friends who have been to many of the overseas rounds, until I have personally seen how other countries run their MotoGPs, all I could go on was hearsay.

I recently attended the opening round of the 2025 MotoGP season, thanks to Compass Expeditions hosting me on its inaugural Thailand MotoGP Tour. This was a sensational 13-day odyssey through Thailand which included two days at Chang International Raceway in Buriram watching the world’s best riders chasing the Marquez brothers around the racetrack.

And what I experienced in Thailand permits me to advise you that what the AGPC puts on at Phillip Island is a weekend club race. And that is an international disgrace.

This has nothing to do with Dorma, the FIM, or IRTA. This is all on the Victorian Government. Because it is the Victorian Government who established the AGPC. And it is the Victorian Government who continues to fund this landfill of an organisation which is meant to run both the Formula One (which lost 100-million dollars hosting the event last year, see HERE, and the MotoGP. By hosting these events, it is meant to showcase Victoria (indeed Australia) to the world at large. And it does this using our money, both and State and Federal, to do this. Though the main driver for the Victorian government in this instance seems to be so that Sydney doesn’t get either of those events. As if that would make any difference to how the event is run. Because I can assure you, the bush-apes in the NSW state government are no more skilled in these things than the provincial chimpanzees in Victoria.

How it works is like this…

 

Dorna has a product. It is the MotoGP race series. If you wish to host this series in your country, you pay Dorna for that privilege. Dorna makes its money like this, as well as selling TV rights, and there is nothing wrong with that. It’s a solid business model which entertains us for almost a whole year via our TVs. Or, if the opportunity presents itself, we can attend the actual event in person.

And this is where it all goes straight to bastard shit for the AGPC. Thailand hosts the same event – a round of the MotoGP – so much better, that our effort is indeed an international disgrace by comparison.

I spent three days in Buriram and I was blown away by the sheer excellence I experienced in terms of amenities, event management, atmosphere, and hospitality. The Phillip Island fiasco cannot even be compared. I am serious. What we offer fans and what Chang offers fans is light-years apart.

I will not go into the disgusting and disgraceful amenities we inflict upon the international race teams. None of that affects you, the fan, who comes to see the racing. You’re hardly going to lose sleep at night knowing racers have to piss into bottles, because there are only two toilets in the paddock – one is directly behind the pit-building, and there is a smaller one way over on the left near where the pit garages start. There is another toilet behind the kiosk at the end of pitlane, but that’s not accessible to the teams. All the toilets are small, crowded, and require constant cleaning and maintenance. There is not a single toilet inside the actual pit-lane building. If the media wants to wee, or anyone in the corporate suites want to poo, they need to go downstairs and do sharsies with Uccio, Claudio, Davide, and Pit.

By contrast, there are spotlessly clean toilets everywhere at Chang. You know what else there is at Chang? Places to sit in the shade. The entire circuit complex is paved. It can rain all it wants and you won’t be trudging through a bog. You also won’t be standing or sitting in the rain. The vast main grandstand is covered, as are the other grandstands. But I’m fairly sure you all knew that. The lack of a permanent grandstand at Phillip Island has long been an insoluble issue.

 

Track-owner, Lindsay Fox won’t build one. And why should he? I wouldn’t if I was him. What’s in it for him to spend millions doing that? Where is his return for that investment? To be fair, the offer was made to improve the facilities. But that offer also involved Mr Fox building hotels and amenities on and around the circuit – and the local council was having none of that. Such work, the council declared, would impact negatively on the local flora and fauna, and the bucolic lifestyles of the locals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And that, is very much fucking that. Australia’s best road-racing circuit – a track that is rightly considered one of the best in the world – is simply doomed in terms of ever offering any kind of world-class amenities and facilities to the fans.

But why should that mean the AGPC cannot or will not work with what it has, and make some kind of serious effort to provide a truly spectacular international event? The only possible conclusion is the AGPC is stunningly shit at what it does. I mean, what superpowers does it need to have to lose 100 million bucks running an F1 event in the middle of Melbourne?

 

A relatively poor, Second World nation like Thailand puts its efforts to shame.

You really need three full days to appreciate the size, energy, and scope of what the Thais offer fans at the circuit. There are several air-conditioned and carpeted pavilions where you can watch the races in comfort. Each of these have food and beverage stalls inside so you don’t have to brave the heat. Hell, there was even a chemist in one of the halls.

There is the legendary Chang beer pavilion – where non-stop live music and insanely cheap beer flows all day and into the night. Lots of places to sit, and big screens to watch. Not a security guard in sight, and not a hint of trouble in the air. To compare it to the overpriced, filthy, and stinking midden the AGPC offered and hyped up as a “Beer Hall” at last year’s round is just not possible. There were more officious security guards in there than people at one stage.

To compare our Expo to what is on offer at Chang is also impossible. One is a small, overcrowded, and stinking-hot gronk-fest, where companies are savagely gouged to occupy a stand for three days. Chang offers several blocks of everything from stand-alone pavilions thumping with music, promo girls, promotions, and prizes, to huge covered areas offering simply divine food and lots of tables to eat it at.

What do we get? Oh, you know, bags of chips for the price of a kidney, or whatever slop a dozen or so food vans can churn out without going broke – because rest assured, they also have to pay the AGPC big wads of cash to ply their wares. And you can eat those wares at any of the six small tables adjacent to the Expo, stand in the mud, stand on the grass, or haul it all back to your shitty “grandstand” seat and gnaw on it there. Along with your liver, I guess.

 

Or, if it’s raining, you can stand under the Expo overhang with the rest of the sheltering crowd like a herd of unwashed poncho-covered cattle awaiting the abattoir hammer.

 

I’m sure you’re wondering then what it is the AGPC does at the actual event. Pretty much everywhere you look in the paddock, you will see their red-shirted employees standing or walking around in groups, staring at their phones. There are a lot of them, certainly in the paddock area.

Well, I’m not sure what it is the AGPC actually does at the circuit. Off the circuit, I know it creates that execrable printed “program” for the weekend. And then sells it to people. People, who presumably don’t have a Smartphone and can’t access the MotoGP app to discover what’s on at what time. I know this because I was the editor of it once. And only once. Trying to create an interesting and engaging magazine while being overseen by clueless government monkeys is of no benefit to me professionally or creatively.

 

I also know it makes bank on the hapless Expo stallholders, food vendors, and motorcycle importers who pay huge amounts of money to build a stand-alone pavilion away from the Expo. And they are great places to track mud through or get out of the rain, while pretending you’re really interested in the latest BMW, so there is that.

I am at a loss to understand what else the AGPC does at the track. Dorna controls everything and does everything. The media, the interviews, the scheduling, access to anything and everything, you name it, Dorna is across it.

 

From what I have seen up close and personal from my time in the Media Centre, the AGPC is responsible for

 

• Playing the right national anthem at the right time, something it has struggled to do in the past, and will no doubt balls-up in the future.

 

• Ensuring the correct flag is placed on the correct pole for the podium. They are assisted in this by instructions about which way is up on each flag, and to which country it belongs. And fair enough. Those things can be confusing if you spend your days in nail salons or gaming on-line.

 

• Making sure none of its employees are overworked or traumatised by their jobs, which requires an HR person to provide them with vitamins, liquids, and electrolytes, while asking about their well-being.

Besides that, they are provided with really good warm jackets, and nice places to sit out of the weather, free food and drink from the media’s complimentary small stash of sandwiches, water, and coffee. I have no idea if their accommodation is provided, but I’m guessing it needs to be.

 

Other than that? No idea.

 

Yet somehow, all this tax-payer largesse prevents them actually being helpful to anyone. They seem utterly unable to answer any kind of question they are asked, so regular media attendees don’t even bother and go straight to a Dorna official.

The AGPC subcontracts the security, crowd and traffic management out to other firms. These are the firms who provide the brainlessly officious guards. There is zero chance these people will smile and wave at you when you leave the circuit like their Thai counterparts do when you ride out of Chang. But what I have seen them do is prevent a team mechanic carrying a tyre to a bike on the grid from crossing because a shit-truck (the portable toilets will not flush themselves, you know) has right of way at the pedestrian crossing.

 

So, in terms of hosting an international event complete with a great atmosphere, superb facilities for riders and fans, which showcases our wondrous country, its cuisine, its hospitality, and its ability to play on a world stage, we fail. Epically.

That is where we are, and that is what we are. And that is all we shall ever be. Because we simply cannot be anything else. We do not know how. And we are not prepared to learn.

 

You know why? Because the fans do not know what they do now know. And as long as the fans remain ignorant, the AGPC can continue to lose money while staging garbage events, and simultaneously pat itself on the back each and every time.

 

I am ashamed on its behalf.