Pato O'Ward is eager for a chance to bring an IndyCar Series race in front of a mass of passionate fans in his home country of Mexico.
The 25-year-old, who is unquestionably the sport’s most popular driver as his legion of followers flood grandstands with flags and even surround his transporter throughout a race weekend, has been consistently outspoken about taking North America’s premier open-wheel championship to the other side of the Rio Grande.
There hasn’t been an IndyCar presence in Mexico since 2007, which came under the Champ Car era at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.
NASCAR lands Mexico race first
And now, IndyCar has been beaten to the punch once again by NASCAR.
As Motorsport.com earlier reported, NASCAR will race at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in Mexico City next year. The event is scheduled for June 14-15 in 2025, the same weekend the IndyCar Series will be at Gateway. The track layout for NASCAR will feature 14 turns, but will skip Turns 5 and 6, going right at Turn 4 instead of left. Beyond that change, it will follow the layout used by F1 in the Mexican Grand Prix.
When Motorsport.com first heard rumblings of the likelihood that NASCAR was headed to Mexico, it was during the IndyCar weekend of the Detroit Grand Prix in early June. It was then O’Ward shared some thoughts on the subject, including the joy for his friend and Cup Series driver Daniel Saurez, who, like O’Ward, hails from Monterrey, Mexico.
“I'm super happy for Daniel that he's gonna be able to have that,” O’Ward told Motorsport.com.
“You know, they [NASCAR] obviously are very well aware of what Latin communities can bring to a series.”
O’Ward, a six-time race winner and driver of the No. 5 Arrow McLaren Chevrolet, also extended thoughts not relenting trying to get IndyCar back to Mexico, with hope of it counting towards the championship and not becoming a non-points exhibition similar to The Thermal Club earlier this season.
“For us, it's above my pay grade, man,” he said. “I don't know, like I'll push for it as much as I can, but it's not my decision to make. I really hope whenever they [IndyCar] do decide to make that decision to go to Mexico, I will be very upset if it's not part of the points system for the actual championship.”
Plans for the future
Back in February of 2022, Mark Miles, the president and CEO of Penske Entertainment Corporation that owns IndyCar, shared that Mexico was a place he “could imagine” the series racing. At the time, he said, “I think our strategy is that we're going to continue to focus our racing in North America. For those of you in Mexico City, you'll know that we know that Mexico is in North America!”
Miles went on to add, “We've long seen Mexico as a market where we could imagine racing. We've got to find the right place under the right circumstances, but we are interested in racing in Mexico if we can put all the pieces together.”
In the time since those comments by Miles, IndyCar appeared more likely headed to an exhibition race in Argentina until a presidential election last December changed the course of that possibility. Meanwhile, there has been little known of any movement of the IndyCar’s leadership continuing to push for a possible long-awaited return to La Ciudad de los Palacios.
"Ask Penske"
During an IndyCar media call on Tuesday, Motorsport.com asked Graham Rahal his thoughts on why IndyCar isn’t in Mexico.
“I think you should ask Penske Entertainment that question, not me,” Rahal said.
Then Rahal, who won his first-ever Atlantics race in Mexico (Fundidora Park) in 2006 before finishing fourth at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez the following year in the step up to Champ Car, succinctly shared his desire to see IndyCar entertain more races outside of the United States (the only current round beyond the country's border takes place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada).
“I'm all about international expansion,” Rahal said. “So, you know. Yeah.”
