The designer of the original Adelaide street circuit has slammed Liberty Media for their decision to axe Phillip Island and race in the city instead, citing high costs and activist opposition among its many problems.
This whole thing about sustainability is just so much bulls**t.
– Bob Barnard, Adelaide Street Circuit Designer
MotoGP has not raced on a street circuit since 1982 and the reason for that was that riders kept dying. The final straw came at the Imatra street circuit in Finland, when sidecar racer Jock Taylor was killed after striking a telephone pole at the track’s edge.
While safety standards have clearly been improved significantly since the 1980s, some obstacles are permanent, and it is this key issue which Adelaide track designer Bob Barnard has raised.
Speaking with long-time MotoGP insider Max Oxley on The Oxley Bom MotoGP Podcast, Barnard gave a damning assessment of the current Liberty Media plans:
“Alright, so the key is when I built Adelaide for the Formula 1, I was not allowed to take one tree out, not one over the whole track. And this thing went through the park, so there were trees I’d love to have taken out,“
“So you literally had to work within those confines. Now, when I look at this plan, it’s going to be Albert Park. They’re just going to knock all these trees out. I mean, the track isn’t going to be related to what I built in the first place, so is it going to be better?“
“I think it’s going to be Albert Park, and no one wants to go to Albert Park anyway. Unfortunately, this is what’s going on with Liberty.“
The iconic Phillip Island Circuit (Photo: Red Bull Content Pool)
However, it is not just safety and ecology that pose serious issues to Adelaide’s Grand Prix, expenditure is also a massive issue. Barnard continues:
“There’s a few things going on. One of the big things about a city track and you take Adelaide for the Formula 1, no one drove their car there apart from the drivers.“
“There was no parking space, but it’s in the middle of a city. So you’ve got public transport, all these garages in town, everything else. Everyone sort of got to the track, and that’s the beauty. It’s like Zandvoort, but this whole thing about sustainability is just so much bulls**t.“
“I don’t know if you remember what happened at Albert Park. There were people who chained themselves to trees, they went and protested outside Bernie Ecclestone’s house in London.“
“You’re going to have the same group of people in Adelaide if you start showing them what you’re going to knock over. And then who’s paying for this?“
“The state government is going to spend so much money to put this race on. They’re building a whole new pit complex. I mean, it’s going to be a hundred million or more, easily rebuilding this track. And you’ve got to say, for what?”