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August 27, 2024
By Holly Cain NASCAR Wire Service
Photo by Manuel Velasquez/Getty Images
In one of the biggest NASCAR schedule developments in years, NASCAR confirmed Tuesday that it will bring its premier NASCAR Cup Series to Mexico City, Mexico next season to headline a triple-header weekend at the famed Autodromo Hermanos Rodriquez road course.
The NASCAR Cup Series race is slated for June 15, 2025 with NASCAR Xfinity Series and NASCAR Mexico Series races during the weekend as well in what is a multi-year deal with the venue.
This marks the first points-paying NASCAR Cup Series race held outside the United States since July 1958 when the series raced in Toronto, Canada. NASCAR did hold three exhibition races in Suzuka City, Japan from 1996-1998.
“This is a historic moment for our sport, and specifically for the NASCAR Cup Series, in being able to expand our footprint to Mexico,” NASCAR’s Executive Vice President & Chief Venue & Racing Innovation Officer Ben Kennedy said. “We’ve been bold about our intentions to grow on a global scale, and there isn’t a better place to take the next step in that journey than at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez road course in Mexico City.”
The venue is a 2.674-mile road course with 17 turns – sitting an elevation of 7,342-feet – and has hosted Formula One races since a major remodeling in 2015. There have been four NASCAR Xfinity Series points paying races at this same Mexican venue from 2005-2008 with Kyle Busch winning the last in 2008.
Brett Moffitt won the last NASCAR national series race held outside the United States – a 2019 NASCAR CRAFTSMAN Truck Series race at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park.
“To get where we are going, we must go to where we have never been,” NASCAR Cup Series competitor, Mexican driver Daniel Suarez said in a video released to announce the ground-breaking news.
“It’s been unbelievable,” Suarez said from the track in a call with the national media. “There are a lot of people excited here in Mexico today. It’s a day that we will remember forever, a very long time. We were talking last night at dinner, that today we are making history. Today we are bringing the biggest series in stock car in the world to Mexico City to a points race for the very first time in the Modern Era. So, it’s unbelievable.
“I feel very, very humbled and blessed to be part of this announcement today and I cannot tell you how many people there are downstairs recording and taking pictures,” Suarez said of the massive media turnout for the announcement. “The energy was unbelievable and we are still a lot of months away from the race.”
To that point, a site for ticket sales – nascarmexico.com – went immediately live with the announcement.
Kennedy confirmed that 2025 schedule will feature only one Richmond (Va.) Raceway NASCAR Cup Series race to accommodate Mexico on the schedule. And he noted, that it now marks five consecutive years, that the series has been able to add a new venue – from the Los Angeles Coliseum to Austin’s Circuit of The Americas to races in St. Louis, Nashville and the Chicago Street Course – and now, the first international event in almost 60 years.
“This has certainly been a journey for us on the scheduling front,” Kennedy said, adding. “Our next opportunity was to expand internationally and we said we’ve wanted to do this for a long time but also needed to make sure it was the right time, the right partners and the right location and Mexico City checked every box.
“To be in one of the biggest cities globally – over 20 million people that live in the city – is a massive opportunity for us to bring the sport.”
Driver reaction on social media has been positive as well.
“I’ve never been to Mexico or raced internationally before, so this is pretty epic! It’s exciting to travel to new places and get our sport in front of more audiences,” driver Anthony Alfredo wrote on the X social media platform.
