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.
Well, I think LS is a great track, I just don’t think F1 in 2010 would like it. You are right about the objections being pretty pathetic—pretty sure GP at LS would draw 2-3 times what the Turkish GP managed.
Monaco probably ought to be dropped in modern F1, but because of the glitterati and the history will be on the schedule for as long as F1 exists. As a race it is usually fairly boring (IMO) unless someone screws up their pit stop.
F1 - just like NASCAR would love to be in the NY market. To do it they would have to start from scratch. If a Northern NJ town was really smart, they would take some brown field former industrial area with direct assess to arterial roadway and call Hermann Tilke.