It’s Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix weekend at Phillip Island and, well, so far it’s been a dreary old week down in Victoria as the wet, windy and cool weather has dampened what’s otherwise one of the greatest events on the international calendar.

Despite the conditions, there’s no doubt everybody loves coming down under for Phillip Island, but this week’s weather has sparked renewed calls to move the Australian round to an earlier date in the season. We’re not exactly in winter anymore, but it’s still far from summer-type weather in Victoria as well.

With the likes of Valentino Rossi leading to calls to move the date forward, you’d have to think it will be taken into consideration. And with a newly-extended contract through 2026, there’s plenty of time to put such a scenario in place.

For me, it doesn’t make much of a difference either way. At the moment I enjoy WorldSBK in February as the season-opener and then October is one of the biggest weeks of the year between Bathurst, the Australian GP, Gold Coast 600 and Speedway GP (the latter three all of which actually clash this weekend).

Source: Supplied.

Next year’s calendar has already essentially been set in stone, so don’t expect any revisions soon in terms of an earlier Australian stop on the schedule, however it’s been raised for serious debate now. And the fact that the Australian Grand Prix Corporation hosts the Formula 1 at Albert Park in March also is a significant reason why MotoGP’s held later in the year.

Anyway, it’s unreal to see Team Estrella Galicia 0,0 Marc VDS Honda’s MotoGP regular Jack Miller return home as a premier class race winner this year and I have a feeling he will do something special this weekend, no matter the conditions. And Mike Jones on the Avintia Racing Ducati for a second weekend, he too could cause an upset or two among the satellite entries.

Keen observers following the domestic racing will be well aware by now that Yamaha Racing Team has opted out of the grand prix weekend, which is a bit of a puzzling decision since they made such an impact at Phillip Island one year ago with Glenn Allerton winning race two and tying for the overall with then Kawasaki-mounted Jones.

It appears it comes down to budget for the Queensland-based factory team, however what’s even more interesting is that Allerton and Wayne Maxwell are in fact testing at Queensland Raceway tomorrow instead of being down in Victoria competing in front of one of the largest live audiences all year.

Which brings us to Cru Halliday. He was informed late last week that he won’t be re-signed at YRT for 2017, which was at about the same moment Troy Bayliss secured DesmoSport Ducati regular Jones a spot at Avintia Racing for the Japanese Grand Prix.

Image: Russell Colvin.

Jones went on to impress and when Hector Barbera was kept at the factory Ducati Team for Phillip Island, Avintia kept the Aussie on for his home GP. That in turn opened up the door for Halliday to fill his place aboard the Panigale in the Australian Superbike support races for this weekend.

Unless something arises for Jones overseas fulltime in 2017 we’d expect him to re-sign with DesmoSport Ducati fulltime, but wouldn’t it be good to see the team expand to another entry and keep Halliday on it as well? The more riders on the ASBK grid, the better, and Jones/Halliday would make for a really, really competitive combo.

That’s it from me for this week, hopefully the weather continues to improve at the Island for Sunday and we can enjoy a dry Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix tomorrow. Regardless, we’ll be keeping track of all the action!

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