9 corners covered, 4 of which decide the lap. What each one asks of the car, and what you do about it.
The lapThe Full Course with the chicane in, partway down No Name Straight. One slow corner changes the whole character: the lap stops being pure momentum and starts asking for braking stability and kerb compliance that the Full Course never needs.
Set up forKerb compliance through the chicane first — it is the only thing here the Full Course does not also ask for — then the same settled rear over the Uphill and down through Diving Turn.
Classic mistakeTreating it as the Full Course with an inconvenience in the middle. The chicane is the one place a car can be genuinely bad here, and it is worth giving up a little elsewhere to be good in it.
Works hardestKerbs and brakes at the chicane, fronts through Big Bend
Length2.61 km · road course · US
T1 Big Bend, first
Fast right · two corners · decreasing radius
Two corners taken as one, turning the car through more than 180 degrees, and tightening towards the exit.
- Technique
- A classic entry-speed corner, and the radius closes on you. Go in too hot and you run out of road at the exit and have to lift.
T2 Big Bend, second •
Fast right · two corners · decreasing radius
Two corners taken as one, turning the car through more than 180 degrees, and tightening towards the exit.
- Technique
- A classic entry-speed corner, and the radius closes on you. Go in too hot and you run out of road at the exit and have to lift.
T3 The Lefthander
Medium left
The one true left on the lap, and everything about it is in service of the corner after it.
- Technique
- Brake in a straight line and be willing to give this one up. What matters is arriving at the Righthander in the right place.
T4 The Righthander
Fast right · positive camber
Flat in a slow car on the right line, and it feeds No-Name straight — the second-longest full-throttle stretch of the lap.
- Technique
- Use the positive camber mid-corner and get back to power as early as you dare. Getting this one right is most of the straight that follows.
T5a The Chicane, first •
Slow · chicane · kerbs
Sits partway down No-Name straight, and is the only real braking zone on the circuit — the corner that stops the lap being one continuous arc.
- Technique
- Take the kerb square and get the car straight early. Everything either side of it is momentum, so a bad chicane is paid for twice.
T5b The Chicane, second
Slow · chicane · kerbs
Sits partway down No-Name straight, and is the only real braking zone on the circuit — the corner that stops the lap being one continuous arc.
- Technique
- Take the kerb square and get the car straight early. Everything either side of it is momentum, so a bad chicane is paid for twice.
T5 The Uphill •
Medium right · blind · compression
Blind on entry, and the road climbs sharply after the apex, compressing the car into the pavement.
- Technique
- Turn in earlier than feels right. The compression arrives after the apex and gives you grip you cannot feel on the way in.
T6 West Bend
Fast right
A bigger speed adjustment than the corners either side of it, and the apex is harder to reach than it looks.
- Technique
- Brake, turn in, then back to power — as three things, not one. Rushing the middle is what makes the apex feel unreachable.
T7 The Downhill •
Fast right · compression at turn-in
The fastest corner on the circuit, beginning at Bailey Bridge after an approach that drops six storeys. The corner itself is level; getting to it is not.
- Technique
- There is a compression zone right at turn-in. Exit speed is king here, because the main straight is next and every mistake is multiplied by it.