It was today announced that this year’s Phillip Island race will be the last, with South Australia inking a deal to host a sensational MotoGP street race from 2027 onwards.
The SA government swooped on a MotoGP deal as talks between series officials and the Victorian government stalled.
Speaking to ABC Radio, two-time Australian Grand Prix winner Gardner made it clear that he blamed the state government-backed Australian Grand Prix Corporation for Phillip Island losing the event.
“I’ve just heard the news, I’m not surprised if I’m honest,” said Gardner from his Monaco base. “This has been coming for some years.
“The Victorian government, they have a reputation of winning, losing, disappearing, and then they come back, and then they go again, and it’s just on and off.
“It’s a disappointment, I never thought I’d see that happen after the [early] success. Bob Barnard, he laid the circuit, and he approached me, said, ‘I’ll go and do this; I want to repave this track, [but] only if you’re involved, and you can lobby the government, you can do all the media and so on’.
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“We worked together, just the two of us, to put that event on. And it was all off the back of when I was a world champion.
“So I’m kind of sad and disappointed, but I’m not surprised by the antics of the Victorian government and the AGP Corp.”
The genesis for Victoria losing the race was MotoGP’s strong desire to shift it from Phillip Island to Albert Park, and the government’s refusal to properly investigate the idea.
That detail appeared to be lost on Gardner, who falsely claimed that MotoGP wouldn’t have allowed the Australian Grand Prix to move to Albert Park on safety grounds.
“You can’t race a motorcycle around Albert Park, because of the concrete walls,” he said.
“I’ve raced cars, but I certainly wouldn’t race a motorcycle there. And I know MotoGP or Dorna would not allow a race to go there. In fact, all the riders would say they’re not gonna race. They would ban it.”
While the nature of the Adelaide deal has proven the street circuit factor was overwhelmingly decisive, Gardner’s take is that it was a lack of investment in the Phillip Island event that “brought it undone”.
He drew a clear link between that lack of investment in the event and the AGPC’s decision back in 2024 to stop paying Gardner’s travel expenses from Europe to attend the Phillip Island race.
Gardner was furious about not scoring government-funded travel at the time, a stance that has clearly not softened since.
“Everything changed when the new AGP board got in,” he said.
“I could see they started cutting people and bringing in teenagers to run the events. They were trying to cut costs as much as possible, and then [they] came to me and they said, ‘we’re not offering you any money anymore, it’s your mandatory duty to come down and join the event’.
“I said, ‘but I live in Europe, I have to bring all my family over there. It’s hideously expensive’.
“The main straight is called Gardner Straight, after I had two huge victories there and got the event going. There’s also hospitality units called Gardener hospitality units, and I don’t get one cent from the government or from the AGP Corp for any of this.
“They’ve got my name everywhere, which is an honour, but you would think they would get me down there to go and talk to people, but they are just abusing my history there and they don’t want to pay for it.”
When asked by ABC presenter Sharnelle Vella if he would take back his statue from Phillip Island, Gardner said: “I might jam it up their arses, actually…”
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