Laguna Seca

What you'll find

Laguna Seca is short — just over three and a half kilometres — and that changes everything: there's no time to recover from a mistake because the next corner arrives immediately. Its worldwide fame comes from the Corkscrew, a left-right sequence that drops the equivalent of five storeys of a building in barely two corners and that you enter seeing nothing at all. But the circuit is far more than that: almost all its corners lead uphill, so exit traction matters more than entry speed.

Being short, everything happens in quick succession and there's no time to reset. The first sector is medium-speed corners where exit traction matters, because nearly all of them lead uphill.

The Corkscrew is entered blind, with your reference set on the top of a tree, and you fall through the left-right with the car unloaded. You don't gain time there: you lose it. What matters is coming out clean towards Rainey Curve and the final descent.

Sector by sector

How the lap unfolds from start to finish, with the lines and the places where time is genuinely won and lost.

How to set the car up

Laguna Seca rewards traction above everything. Almost every corner leads uphill, so a car that spins its wheels loses time at each one. It pays to run a setup that prioritises rear stability on exit even if it costs some agility on entry.

Ride height matters because of the Corkscrew: the drop is abrupt and a very low car bottoms out on landing, losing grip exactly when it has to start turning right. It's one of the few places where raising the car a few millimetres finds time.

Downforce goes medium-high. There are no long straights to punish wing and there are several fast uphill corners where grip is welcome, so the compromise resolves easily.

What almost everyone gets wrong

1. Atacar el Corkscrew. It's the corner where most people lose time trying to gain it. You enter with the car straight and come out clean: anything else goes wrong.
2. Entrar pasado en la curva 2. The exit climbs. Gaining on entry here means losing the whole climb that follows.
3. Pisar el gas pronto en Rainey. Es una bajada larga con el coche ligero. La progresividad es lo que separa una salida buena de un trompo.
4. Ignoring traction. At a circuit where almost everything climbs, spinning the wheels costs more than any line error.
5. Adelantar fuera de la horquilla. Turn 11 is essentially the only reliable place. Trying anywhere else at a circuit this narrow ends in contact.

From the real circuit to Assetto Corsa EVO

Escanear un desnivel imposible

The Corkscrew is the definitive proof of why laser scanning matters. Its drop isn't a uniform ramp: there's a change of gradient at the entry and another at the bottom, and it's those two details that make the car unload the way it does. An approximate model would give you a smooth, false descent.

California's dry surroundings, with their bare hills, also give very few visual references, and the ones that exist — a tree, a sign — are reproduced by photogrammetry because they're literally all you have to orient yourself by.

What carries over well

The Corkscrew entry reference. Real drivers use a fixed point in the landscape to know where to turn, because the track can't be seen, and that reference is the same in the sim.

The idea of exit traction, too. Understanding that at Laguna Seca you gain by accelerating well rather than braking late is a directly applicable lesson.

What doesn't carry over

The drop. The Corkscrew subjects the body to an abrupt vertical unloading, a hollow feeling in the stomach that no monitor reproduces. It's the corner in the world where the difference between playing and driving shows most.

Tampoco el estado del asfalto: Laguna Seca es un circuito con mucha historia y su superficie cambia bastante entre reasfaltados, algo que el juego congela en un momento concreto.

Visitar Laguna Seca

The circuit sits in the hills near Monterey, California, in an area of real tourist appeal beside Carmel and the coast road. It runs track days and numerous historic car events.

The Corkscrew has a spectator area at the top from which you can see the whole drop, and it's essential for any enthusiast passing through California. [Confirm calendar and access on the official website.]

Where it comes from

It opened in 1957 on former army land near Monterey, and takes its name from a seasonal lagoon that dried out in summer. The Corkscrew has existed since the first layout: it was drawn following the natural terrain.

It's a historic IMSA and motorcycle racing venue, and the scene of Rossi's pass on Stoner in 2008, probably the most replayed move in the Corkscrew's history.

Visiting the real circuit

Laguna Seca is in the hills near Monterey, California, about two hours south of San Francisco. The area is a destination in its own right, between Carmel, the Monterey peninsula and the coast road.

The circuit runs track days, driving schools and numerous historic car events. On quiet days you can access part of the site, and there's a campsite, which is unusual for European circuits.

The unmissable date is Monterey Car Week in August, with historic races and concours events. And if you go on any other day, the Corkscrew viewpoint is worth the trip on its own. [Confirm calendar and access on the circuit's official website.]

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