IndyCar tire test at newly repaved Laguna Seca finds a track with "video game" qualities.

For the first time since the track was repaved, IndyCar teams ran at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. And the verdict?

“[It’s] like a video game,” says Arrow McLaren driver Felix Rosenqvist with a chuckle.

Rosenqvist and Chip Ganassi Racing’s Alex Palou took part in a half-day test session on Wednesday, July 26 at the behest of Firestone to better understand how tires would react to the new surface.

Although both drivers note that the track will be different by the time September rolls around, they were impressed by the new asphalt.

“It was a lot better than I expected,” says Palou, who currently leads the season points standings by 80 points over Team Penske’s Josef Newgarden. “It’s completely different—a lot faster.”

Rosenqvist suggests that lap times improved by four seconds over a year ago, when the cars ran on a track surface laid down in 2008. Both agreed the surface was smoother, and while such things as racing lines and braking points had to be adjusted, grip levels made for good exit speeds out of the corners.

“”Out of the Corkscrew is very grippy—a lot quicker,” the Arrow McLaren driver explains. “You can feel it in the steering wheel, which is cool”—and which led to his video game comparison.

But their time on the track was for Firestone’s benefit. According to Palou, the manufacturer brought five different hard compound tires, intended for longer runs, as one alternate soft compound set.

Each team's job at the tire test was to run 20 or so consistent laps on each set in order for Firestone to gather data. For each road course race, the company brings a hard (or primary) and soft compound tire, based upon the track.

Until it was resurfaced at the end of June, Laguna Seca was known for its nasty temperament toward rubber, making it a loose, low-grip track.

“They made it better,” Palou observes. “I had a ton of fun.”

The information gleaned from Wednesday’s session will likely lead to a flurry of work on the cars when they arrive for the Firestone Grand Prix of Monterey the weekend of Sept. 8-10.

“Everyone is going to make a lot of changes,” Rosenqvist says. “It’s a new challenge.”

With five races remaining in the season—Laguna Seca is the season finale—a battle is shaping up between Palou and Newgarden. The former won last year’s race at the iconic track. Scott Dixon, one of Palou’s teammates in the Chip Ganassi stable, sits in third. Meanwhile Marcus Ericsson, Scott McLaughlin and Pato O’Ward are locked in a fight for fourth, the trio currently separated by a single point.

“I hope it doesn’t come down to the last race, but it was really good for us last year,” Palou says. “It will be exciting.”

Rosenqvist, who is lodged in 12th at the moment thanks to a see-saw season, is looking forward to the return trip to Monterey County.

“I just love being out here,” he says, adding that he would like a home in Carmel. “I wish I could afford it.”