Laguna Seca is definitely one of those names that make motorsport enthusiasts all over the world leap up. It reminds us of memorable battles between Schwantz and Rainey in the 80s, of Rossi slipping on the gravel while overtaking Stoner in 2008, of Alex Zanardi’s epic passing of Bryan Herta on the inside of the Corkscrew at the last lap of the 1996 CART race and so on. This is why our mates from motorsportblog.it got so excited when Mercedes-Benz invited them at the famous Laguna Seca Raceway to test the new C 63. We will tell you more about that at a later time, but for now you can enjoy this juicy appetizer that our friends took home from the Californian circuit: a video starring former F1 driver and 2-times DTM Champion Bernd Schneider lapping the Laguna Seca track on a Mercedes SLS AMG.
This asphalt ribbon adorning the Californian hills around Monterey is indeed one of the most exciting and demanding tracks of the planet, where almost every corner is a blind one. Needless to say, the world-famous Corkscrew turn is the most spectacular and frightening of them all: basically you cannot see any of it until you are already right into it, therefore perfect knowledge of the track as well as great concentration and skills are just necessary if you want to approach it properly. A seemingly endless slope catapults you flat-out at the top of a hill past which you immediatly see the 3-2-1 indicators on the right telling you that the Corkscrew is right there, although you can barely see it. You just have the time to turn left feeling like the car is taking off the ground, almost guessing where you are, and then you turn right again, at once. It is exactly at that point that you see and ‘feel’ the Corkscrew, right before you nose-dive down the hill, heart in mouth.
The footage above shows us Mr.Schneider doing just that, with the AMG 6.3-litre V8 engine of the SLS screaming with pleasure. Our colleague sitting on the passenger side, Gianluca Pezzi of Autoblog.it, guarantees that in Laguna Seca you can have maximum fun even if you’re not at the steering wheel when there’s someone like Schneider driving. Actually, having a ‘pro’ showing you first hand how they do it can be a very teaching and memorable experience. It doesn’t matter how many times you have done it with your Playstation or X-Box, you will never get that thrilling heart-in-mouth feeling from the Corkscrew that you get from the real thing. Especially if you are just sitting on a couch.
Video | Autoblog.it / Motorsportblog.it
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