The new Assetto Corsa Competizione content pack allows us to race on some iconic tracks in the United States of America.
It is a golden age for Assetto Corsa Competition. After being chosen as the official gaming platform for the next eSports FIA Motorsport Games, the simulator developed by Kunos is enriched with a new DLC, “American Track Pack“, which, as the name suggests, takes the racing cars to three iconic stars and stripes circuits: Indianapolis, Watkins Glen and COTA. As usual Kunos he created the new tracks in a painstaking manner, through the use of laser photogrammetry, a technology so precise that it allows you to faithfully reproduce even the smallest irregularities in the asphalt. We shot for a few hours in these new locations, let’s see how it went.
Indianapolis
The legendary Indianapolis Motor Speedway it is undoubtedly one of the most famous tracks in the world, as well as an authentic temple of American motorsport. The layout introduced in this DLC is the internal one, a tongue of asphalt that winds for over 4 kilometers inside the oval on which the famous “500 miles“. This track was built in 2000 to host the Formula 1 Grand Prix (which was held here until 2007) and boasts 14 corners and two long straights, one of which corresponds precisely to a section of the oval.
It is a track that alternates very fast sections with much slower and more technical sectors, characterized by tight 90-degree bends. The curbs, however, are not very high (except for a couple that are best avoided) and this allows the player to make extensive use of them, without risking the car lifting excessively off the ground and losing grip. Being a circuit obtained from what were once the car parks of the racetrack, there are no differences in height and also for this reason Indianapolis is probably the least demanding of the three tracks introduced with this DLC.
Watkins Glen
Watkins Glen circuit, historic theater of the Formula 1 GP from 1961 to 1980, is located in the town of the same name, in the state of New York. It is a circuit “old school“, with just 11 curves in its five and a half kilometers.
Unlike Indianapolis, this circuit is born on a ground that is anything but flat and this translates into the presence of several downhill and uphill curves, interspersed with long straights. The curbs are very wide and the track limits seemed to us quite permissive, as indeed happens in reality too. For morphology and surrounding environment it is somewhat reminiscent of the famous Belgian circuit of SPA Francorchamps, especially in the first sector. All these features make Watkins Glen a much loved track for motorsport enthusiasts; driving here can be really fun, but in the race a good dose of concentration is required as the track is fast and narrow, the barriers are very close and there are not so many places where you can easily overcome them.
COTA (Circuit of Americas)
Located near the city of Austin, the Circuit of the Americas (also known by the acronym COTA) it is the current home of the United States Grand Prix as regards both Formula 1 and Moto GP. It is a recently built racetrack, inaugurated in 2012, but which has already entered the hearts of enthusiasts thanks to its extremely technical layout. The track is made up of 20 curves, for a total of over 5 kilometers and a total of 41 meters in altitude.
Precisely because of this important difference in height between the various sectors of the circuit, there are several “blind” curves, in which it is impossible to see the point of the chord except at the last moment.
This factor, combined with the load transfer due to the slope, makes COTA a complex circuit to master: here, even more than on other tracks, it is necessary to memorize the braking point of certain curves, perhaps with the help of visual references of the surrounding scenery. Once you have become familiar with its insidious ups and downs, however, the Texan circuit will be able to give a lot of satisfaction to the player, also thanks to the numerous areas where it is easy to overtake.
Assetto Corsa Competition:
PC Analyzed VersionOnce again Kunos took her time to churn out yet another flawless package in terms of reproductive quality. The tracks are extremely faithful to their real counterparts, the behavior of the cars on the track is credible, the track limits are well implemented and we can say, without fear of being proven wrong, that the best digital reproduction of these three circuits is precisely the one offered by Assetto. Competition Race. However, one might wonder if the price of 17.99 euros is adequate for a DLC that adds only three tracks, however maniacally reproduced. The evaluation is inevitably subjective, but making a comparison with the quantity / price ratio of the DLC previously published by Kunos itself, perhaps it would have been legitimate to expect a slightly more competitive price. In conclusion, we remind you that American Track Pack is currently available only for the PC version of Assetto Corsa Competizione and that probably for a possible arrival on consoles we will have to wait at least the autumn.
