Good news from down under, as Dorna has decided to extend its contract with Australia’s racing cathedral, Phillip Island. Already set with a contract through the 2014 racing calendar, Dorna’s new contract extension with Phillip Island sees the Victorian track hosting World Superbikes through the 2017 racing season — and thus secures Melbourne’s position as a sports leader in Australia.

The news comes fresh off the commencement of the 2013 World Superbike Championship season, which held its opening round at the Australian circuit. Phillip Island has been the WSBK season-opening round since 2009, and is known for its close-racing in the production-based series.

Despite the fact that the World Superbike series kicks off on Sunday, the provisional calendar is still very much in a state of flux. Rumors emanating from the WSBK paddock, gathered at Phillip Island for the 2013 season opener, suggest that major changes could stilll take place to the calendar.

The biggest change is that the UK round, set for Silverstone on 4th August, could be dropped altogether, and replaced with a round in Turkey, at the spectacular Istanbul Park Circuit in mid-September.

The rumors, reported by German-language website Speedweek, and confirmed by other WSBK sources, state that Silverstone is to be dropped because the circuit cannot afford to pay the sanctioning fee previously agreed with Infront, and now being demanded by Dorna.

Crowd numbers at Silverstone for World Superbikes were always low, in part because the flat nature of the circuit made viewing difficult, and in part due to relatively high ticket prices, which meant that ticket sales did not generate sufficient revenue to cover the circuit’s costs.

So here’s the good news, after all the uncertainty regarding its media contracts, the 2013 World Superbike Championship will be broadcasted in the United States afterall. The bad news however is that WSBK racing will be on the beIN Sport network. Yeah, we haven’t heard of them either.

With the World Superbike season-opener now less than two weeks away, bad news looms for motorcycle race fans in the United States, as the SPEED Channel (now a part of FOX Sports), does not have a television contract to air WSBK and MotoGP for their 2013 seasons.

An issue that has been hanging in limbo since the start of the year, Superbike Planet yesterday suggested that American motorcycle racing fans could be without the World Superbike Championship on their televisions sets this year (we have heard similar murmurings regarding AMA Pro Racing as well).

Now today, Roadracing World confirmed with SPEED that the network still does not have any contracts with Dorna for the TV rights to WSBK and MotoGP. What’s worse, SPEED’s Vice President of Media Relations Erik Arneson gave no indication that the TV channel was any closer to finishing a deal with Dorna than it was earlier this year.

Now that it has the World Superbike series under its control, Dorna is turning its attention to the question of costs. It was an issue that, WSBK insiders claim, the Flammini brothers and Infront spent too little time on, preferring to focus on trying to compete with MotoGP instead. The series’s critics charge that this obsession allowed bikes into the series that were more like MotoGP prototypes than production road bikes.

The Aprilia RSV4 is one of the bikes most often named in this regard, though perhaps the most extreme example was the Foggy Petronas FP3 machine, of which the entire homologation run is rumored to be stored in a warehouse owned by the Malaysian oil company in Kuala Lumpur. As a result, grids have shrunk from around thirty starters in 2009 to just twenty in 2013.

Dorna’s solution is a mixture of methods gleaned from their recent experience in MotoGP: price caps and pressure on the manufacturers to reduce costs of their own accord. In an interview with the German-language website Speedweek, Carmelo Ezpeleta said that his aim is to have all manufacturers supply teams with bikes at a cost of €250,000 per rider.

Included in that amount would be two bikes per rider, and full support to complete an entire season. Only crash damage would be excluded from the quarter of a million per season, that being a cost that is outside the control of the factories. In addition, Ezpeleta said each manufacturer had to be prepared to supply up to six riders with equipment, should there be sufficient interest, a measure currently being enforced in Moto3.

The inaugural round of World Superbikes in India is under serious threat, which leaves Dorna facing severe problems just months after taking over the running of the WSBK series. Bureaucracy, customs formalities, and import bonds threaten to see the race, scheduled to be held on March 10th at the Buddh International Circuit near New Delhi in India, either postponed or called off indefinitely, according to reports over on GPOne.

When Dorna took over control of the World Superbike Championship, speculation began to fly what the changing of the guard would mean for motorcycling’s premier production-based racing series. Always seen as the annoying little sibling to the prestigious MotoGP World Championship, many have expected to see Dorna cut out a clearer distinction between the two series, with WSBK returning to machines that are closer to stock-spec, while MotoGP continued to play with its CRT formula.

Now, reports out of Europe say Dorna is set to kill the 600cc and 1,000cc superstock classes in 2014, leaving only the superbike and supersport classes for 1,000cc and 600c based racing, respectively. Looking to switch to a three-race format, like in MotoGP, the World Superbike Championship would reportedly add a 250cc production-based class, which would serve as the development class for the series, and would help bolster the new fleet of small-displacement sport bikes OEMs have producing recently.

The fourth time is a charm, as Dorna has released a revised version of the 2013 MotoGP Championship calendar today. As expected, the Sachsenring round has been moved back a week, so as not to conflict with Formula One’s schedule in the region.

Additionally, the Spanish GP at Jerez has been confirmed, and will remain on the schedule through the 2015 season. The Andalucian Government, Jerez City Council, and Dorna came to agreement to keep the popular event financed for the next three years.

Along with its third iteration of the 2013 MotoGP Championship’s provisional calendar, Dorna has issued a statement regarding the removal of the Argentinian round from the racing schedule for next year. In its brief statement about the “non-inclusion,” Dorna cites the Spanish government’s recommendation in June of this year, which said that Repsol teams and riders should not travel to Argentina for safety reasons.

Dorna also states that on November 20th, the Spanish government rescinded this “no travel” recommendation; however, because the deadline for the calendar was November 18th, the MotoGP rights holder had no choice but to cancel of the Argentinian GP. Read in between the lines as you will, the press release is after the jump.

True to the rumors heard in the MotoGP paddock, the Argentinian GP has been canceled by Dorna. Scheduled as the second round for the 2013 MotoGP Championship, the loss of the round in Argentina means that the season-opener at Qatar has been pushed further back into the year, and is now slated to be held on April 7, 2013.

The Austin GP is now the second round of the series, and will continue to be held on April 21, 2013. The full provisional 2013 MotoGP calendar is after the jump, and now supersedes the previously published provisional calendar. Click here for Dorna’s statement as to why the round was cancelled.