If you'd just taken over MotoGP and you wanted to absolutely infuriate your existing fanbase on pretty much day one, there's probably no better way to do so than to scrap what is hands down the most beloved track on the schedule.
And if you wanted to really double down on that by alienating the stars of the show in the process, why not replace it with a circuit they're likely to regard as a huge safety concern?
And yet, that's exactly what Dorna - sorry, the MotoGP Sports Entertainment Group, now that Formula 1 owner Liberty Media is in charge - has managed to do by replacing one of motorcycle racing's most iconic circuits, Phillip Island, with a street race in the centre of rival Australian city Adelaide.
Dorna (and I'm going to keep calling it that while the Ezpeleta family are still in charge, because this has clearly come from them rather than being a Liberty-led decision) will tell you that it's good for Australian motorcycle racing, of course. A city centre race, just like what F1 has successfully done. Easier access for the fans. A better event all around.
Of course, none of that is why the race is moving from the neighbouring state of Victoria; the bigger cheque on offer from South Australia, still looking for revenge 30 years after Victoria stole F1 away and took it from Adelaide to Melbourne, is.
Dorna always claims rider safety is its number one priority. I've spent hours looking at the proposed Adelaide circuit on Google Maps since the news was announced, on top of having actually been there in person, too, and I just can't see any world in which it can be made safe for MotoGP without tearing down hundreds of trees, a few businesses, and a couple of dozen houses. There simply isn't the space to make it safe.
We've spent 30 years working to make MotoGP as safe as it possibly can be, and this feels like taking it back to the 1970s. Looking at the old Adelaide F1 track, still used right now for Supercars, we might as well add a MotoGP race in Monaco or Macau. They're about as safe as what's currently on offer in Adelaide.
MotoGP insists, of course, that as well as being bigger and better, the new version of Adelaide will be much safer than the current circuit. But unless organisers are going to knock down fixtures of the city centre, it's impossible to see how it's in any way going to be ready for 320 horsepower MotoGP bikes (let alone a grid full of 30 Moto3-riding teenagers).
Which brings us to the only actual logical conclusion. There's a circuit suitable for MotoGP in South Australia at The Bend, about an hour and a half away from the proposed Adelaide street track and very much on the road to nowhere, isolated as it is out in farm country.
It's been desperate for international events for years and is owned by Australian billionaires the Shahin family. They've not been shy in publicly lobbying state politicians to support a bid to steal MotoGP away from Phillip Island.
It's hard to imagine a world where the race doesn't eventually end up happening at The Bend, perhaps because it's eventually accepted that making Adelaide safe for MotoGP isn't feasible after all.
And if that comes to pass and The Bend really is the Australian GP's future, it would mean MotoGP has traded one of the world's greatest tracks for a comparatively flat and undramatic circuit that has consistently generated rather dull motorbike racing.
