WorldSBK reportedly considering Malaysian race for future seasons after F1 revival

WorldSBK has not raced at Sepang since 2016, but that could reportedly change in 2027.

The last WorldSBK round in Malaysia is a notable one, as it was when Nicky Hayden took his one and only win in the championship, which also remains Honda’s most recent victory in the class.

The track has remained on the MotoGP calendar since it debuted in 1999 (with the exception of the Covid years in 2020 and 2021) and is still regarded as one of the highlights of the season.

The Indonesian round at Mandalika was WorldSBK’s most recent South East Asian location, but the round hasn’t featured since 2023 due to financial losses made on the event.

Since 2024, the WorldSBK calendar has become exceptionally Europe-centric, with the Australian Round at Phillip Island (The Bend from 2028) being the only non-European round on the calendar for the past three seasons.

A return to Malaysia would of course add to the global scale of WorldSBK, and that is reportedly what is being discussed by the championship according to Italian publication Motosprint, which says the possibility arises thanks to a desire from the series to lower costs by mandating a single fuel that would cost under €10 per litre.

The single fuel could come from the Malaysian company Petronas, which also holds the naming rights to the Sepang International Circuit thanks to a three-year deal which began in 2023.

A move back to Sepang would be a kind of trendy move for WorldSBK to announce in 2026, after Formula 1 recently confirmed that its Bahrain Grand Prix – unable to be hosted at the Bahrain International Circuit because of the ongoing war in the region which began at the end of February, but which has cooled in the last few days – would be run at the Sepang International Circuit that last hosted an F1 race in 2017, a year after WorldSBK’s most recent trip to Kuala Lumpur.