With video: The 2024 IndyCar finale moves from Laguna Seca to downtown Nashville, but to a different street circuit than the one that has been used since 2021
This weekend, the IndyCar Series makes its third guest appearance in downtown Nashville to host the Music City Grand Prix. The top US formula racing series will also hold a race on the streets of Nashville in the upcoming 2024 season. However, this will no longer take place at the beginning of August, but in mid-September as the new season finale. In addition, a new track layout will celebrate its premiere on this occasion.
The reason why the street circuit in Nashville will be laid out differently from 2024 than it was from 2021 to 2023 is the fact that extensive renovation work has been announced on the site of the Tennessee Titans’ football stadium, Nissan Stadium. Therefore, the IndyCar Series will have to avoid this part of the city for the most part from 2024.
What will remain regardless of the changed track layout is the crossing of the Cumberland River twice over the Korean Veterans Memorial Bridge. However, in future the bridge will no longer be crossed first from north to south and then from south to north, but the other way round.
While most of the current Nashville street circuit is on the north side of the river around Nissan Stadium, most of the new track layout is planned for the south side. This will include the famous Broadway and will be driven on by the IndyCars. While the track layout used for the last time this weekend has eleven turns, there will only be seven turns on the new layout from 2024.
A new @IndyCar season finale in Nashville, and a new course layout!
The 2024 @MusicCityGP still goes over the bridge AND now it includes Broadway! pic.twitter.com/4t1TLOl68S
– INDYCAR on NBC (@IndyCaronNBC) August 3, 2023
The new Nashville street circuit will start on 4th Avenue heading southeast. Most of the turns on the new layout are 90-degree turns. The first of these goes around to the left onto Korean Veterans Boulevard. This leads over the bridge of the same name. On the north side of the river, there is then a turning loop in the area where the first curve after the start (curve 9) is located on the current layout.
After the turn-around loop, the route goes back over the bridge and thus back to the south side of the river. There, however, it does not turn left into the ultra-rail section as it does at the moment. Instead, a 90-degree right turn (turn 5) leads the IndyCar cars onto 1st Avenue in a north-westerly direction. There it goes under a pedestrian bridge to Broadway.
Turn 6 is a 90-degree left turn onto Broadway. Coming from the river, this is followed into the city until it reaches 4th Avenue. This street is the start/finish straight and onto it is another 90-degree left turn, completing the lap.
The date for next year’s Nashville city race, which will be the season finale on the yet-to-be-released 2024 IndyCar calendar, has already been set for September 15, 2024. That means the new season will end just as early as those in the recent past, including the current 2023 season. Only the location and track type will be different.
In the current 2023 IndyCar season, Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey (California) will host the season finale for the last time. Although this slot in the calendar will be lost, the mountain-and-valley track with its famous corkscrew passage will not fly off the calendar. The chances are good that Laguna Seca will be moved to the spring. However, the season will open again in 2024 on the street circuit in St. Petersburg (Florida).
