South Australia has pinched the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix from Victoria – and the former premier who stole the formula one Grand Prix from Adelaide in the 1990s has praise for its execution.

“I’m crying and I’m laughing,” Jeff Kennett told ABC Radio on Thursday, saying SA Premier Peter Malinauskas’s audacious move to take the motorbike race from Victoria from 2027 was “a stroke of genius”.

“I’ve got a feeling in my bones that we’ll get it back,” Kennett said, adding that he knew the SA media and public “will love it” as a payback for his government taking the F1 from Adelaide in the 1990s.

“We never stole the grand prix, we borrowed it and forgot to give it back,” he said.

Malinauskas announced the deal on Thursday morning, alongside MotoGP Sports Entertainment Group sporting director Carlos Ezpeleta – who flew into Adelaide late on Wednesday.

The bike race will be held at a city circuit already used for the BP Adelaide Grand Final supercars event – the same one once used the F1. Adelaide hosted that race from 1985 to 1995, before losing it to Melbourne’s Albert Park.

Kennett said it would have cost “millions upon millions upon millions” of taxpayer dollars to lure the event to SA.

Victoria’s government wanted the motobike grand prix to remain at Phillip Island, where it has been held since 1997.

The Allan government opposed a demand from race organisers, the MotoGP Sports Entertainment Group, for a shift to Melbourne’s Albert Park to boost mainstream appeal.

Malinauskas said the deal was a “major coup”.

“We are now competing with the rest of the nation for the world’s best events –and winning,” he said.

Any move to Albert Park – the venue of Melbourne’s F1 grand prix – would have required track expansion and likely removal of trees to cater for motorcycling’s larger run-off areas.

“The foreign private owners of the MotoGP have demanded that we move the MotoGP to Albert Park. We said no,” Victorian Major Events Minister Steve Dimopoulos told the ABC.

“We were never willing to sell out Phillip Island.”

Phillip Island’s final Australian MotoGP will be held from October 23-25, with the loss of the event a major blow for the island’s tourism and economy.

Last year’s race at Phillip Island attracted 93,000 spectators. The grand prix was estimated to generate more than $54 million a year in economic benefit to Victoria.

The island has become synonymous with the MotoGP world championship round, particularly given a sustained stretch of local and big-name success.

Australia’s Casey Stoner won the MotoGP race at Phillip Island in six consecutive years from 2007, while Italian legend Valentino Rossi has the most wins on the track – six in the premier class (500cc then MotoGP) and two in 250cc.

Fellow Aussie greats Mick Doohan (1998) and Wayne Gardner (1989, 1990) were also 500cc race winners at the circuit.

The island struck a 10-year deal to host the grand prix in 2016, intended to underwrite investment that never fully materialised which left infrastructure lagging behind MotoGP’s ambitions.

As the Victorian government’s impasse with organisers over Phillip Island continued, SA’s government swooped.

Malinauskas was also instrumental in Adelaide and surrounds being given hosting rights for the AFL’s Gather Round, when all 18 clubs play in SA, and also LIV Golf, which has held an Australian tournament in Adelaide for the past four years.

Republished from InDaily