I think it might be too small/short of a track. Even for MotoGP, they never really get up to speed anyplace.
We really have no good racetracks in this country for F1 as they stand now. Lots of great road courses, esp for sports car (ALMS/Rolex), and of course all the banked ovals for stock cars.
With massive improvements, I could see someplace like Sears Point or Watkins Glen hosting a race. Road America might be great, but I don’t know that their facilities can handle that kind of race in terms of lodging (for example).
F1 said there was nothing wrong with the track itself in 89 when they chose the Phoenix street circuit for the USGP because they believed that an F1 crowd would be too large for Laguna Seca and that it was ‘too remote’.
As wikipedia says about the Phoenix choice:
“The United States Grand Prix lasted in Phoenix for three years, but was ultimately dropped due to poor fan turnout.”
“The death blow for the organizers came when word arose that a local ostrich festival had drawn more people than the Grand Prix.”
So, basically, the only objections that F1 had turned out to not be real - first, LS has proven that it can take the crowds that F1 will attract (in fact, LS handles larger crowds on the Monterey Historic weekend) and it’s not at all ‘remote’.
As for the track itself - F1 still races at Monaco, and the Monaco street circuit is 3.34 km/2.075 miles long. Laguna Seca is *2.238* miles (3.602 km) long - so if it’s ‘too short’, so is Monaco. And nobody is complaining about Monaco being too short.
I didn’t even know what this thread was about until I read some posts.
We took our kids to Watkins Glen in the mid 70’s and there was some practicing going on.
Vrooooooomm !
I was impressed.