Track: Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez
Location: Mexico City
Track length: 2.42 miles
When: Sunday, 3 p.m. ET
Where to tune in: Prime Video, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio
Race purse: $12,561,250
Race distance: 100 laps | 242 miles
Stages: 20 | 45 | 100
Defending winner: None; debut event
Starting lineup:Shane van Gisbergen lands Mexico pole
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Mexico City challenge: Staying the course
The NASCAR Cup Series will experience a succession of firsts this weekend in Mexico City, making its first international foray in decades and reaching new heights at the greatest elevation on the schedule. The challenges of the first trip to the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez circuit, however, will be a foremost factor in deciding who takes the top step on the post-race podium Sunday afternoon.
When asked where he needed to perform well on the 2.42-mile course, Ryan Blaney had jokes.
“Yeah, Turn 1 all the way to 15,” Blaney said, touching all of the track’s corners.
Trouble may find the Cup Series field at any point during Sunday’s Viva Mexico 250 (3 p.m. ET, Prime Video, MRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio), the first points-paying race for NASCAR’s top division since Hall of Famer Lee Petty took checkers in Toronto in 1958. The course that welcomes the Cup campaigners this weekend presents a diverse set of bends to navigate, one of the longest straightaways on the schedule and a final series of twists in a massive stadium section.
“You know, the challenges with the race course and all those things is — road courses for us, everybody’s super aggressive and there’s long straightaways,” said Spire Motorsports’ Michael McDowell. “You get brake zones. There’s going to be opportunities for chaos, and we usually find a way to create it. So that’s what you get nervous about. That’s the challenges, is that you keep putting together a perfect race, and you’ll be having a great weekend and just, you know, get wiped out. Those are the concerns you have going into it.”
MORE: Cup Series standings | Full 2025 schedule
The frontstretch stands out as one of the prime features, measuring 3,937 feet — second only to Talladega’s 4,000-foot backstraight — out of the Turn 15 sweeper toward the snug right-hander of Turn 1. The straightaway’s end has already been prone to calamity this weekend, with Crispa Rodriguez crashing hard there during the NASCAR México Series preliminary. Another long stretch heads to the nearly 180-degree right of Turn 4, which tripped up Anthony Alfredo with heavy contact in Xfinity Series practice.
A series of esses lead to Turn 11, which has proved to be a treacherous right before the Foro Sol stadium area. That curve snared Cup veterans Christopher Bell and Daniel Suárez in Xfinity practice and qualifying, and it’s a crucial set-up spot for the technical portion of the stadium segment. Working through and exiting there cleanly is key for building speed on the home stretch.
“There’s sections, right?” Blaney said. “Like, you have to be good off of (turn) three. Like I always look at, where do I have to be good for passing zones, and that’s your run off of three into four, and it’s different from lap time to race-ability. Like there’s big lap time between five and 10 through the flowing esses. You’re not going to pass anybody through there, but it just sets you up maybe to pass somebody into 11. Or it’s for lap time, like qualifying or running by yourself, so being able to carry good speed off of 9, 10 into the braking zone in 11, you need to be able to brake really well into 12, because I feel like there’s going to be a lot of moves there, shortcut dive bombs. Then obviously you’ve got to get off of 14, 15 good. That’s a weird corner, like you kind of drive up to the wall and you’re in a big radius. Some guys kind of cut it short, and it’s just all about finding grip and traction there to the equivalent of Talladega backstretch.”
At an elevation of 7,315 feet, the track’s location presents its own distinctive wrinkle for drivers, many of whom have undergone special training and have stayed hydrated to adapt to the area. Few drivers reported having much issue with shortness of breath or other fatigue associated with the higher ground after Friday’s two practices, but the effects of being outside of Charlotte (elevation 751 feet) were real.
“I felt it a little bit for sure,” said Daytona 500 winner William Byron, who arrived Wednesday to give himself extra time to adjust. “I think the first session, it was kind of like acclimating, kind of like figuring out how to breathe efficiently and just try to get it all sorted out. But yeah, the second session, I felt fine.”
Besides the course is the magnitude and the potential for pride in becoming the first driver to win a Cup Series points race outside the U.S. in 67 years.
“When you think of NASCAR, right, you think of it being an American thing, and they’ve obviously ventured out to other places, but never for really a points-paying race,” said Joe Gibbs Racing’s Chase Briscoe, who’s a long way from his Indiana hometown. “So to be able to be a part of the first time coming here is neat. I feel like even when we go do stuff in the states, anytime you do the inaugural race, just, it’s special, right? And I’m sure (Sunday) will be the same way. So, yeah, it’s neat getting the opportunity. I never in a million years thought I’d be racing in Mexico City or like, never thought I’d be watching the Pacers in the NBA Finals in Mexico City, either. So, yeah, it’s just definitely unique.
“You know, I was telling Christopher (Bell, his teammate) on the way down here, it’s like, if you would have told us 15 years ago when we were racing sprint cars in Indiana that we’d be flying on Coach Gibbs’ plane to Mexico City to go race, would you believe it? So that’s definitely a special opportunity, and glad to be part of it.”
MORE: Full Saturday recap
From atop the pit box …
What do crew chiefs have in focus to win Sunday’s race?
Matt Swiderski was at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez the last time a NASCAR national series race was held here, working the Xfinity race in 2008, back when the course was significantly different. “That’s really not helping me a whole lot at this point,” he said Friday after a pair of practices, “so that’s a challenge.”
The No. 99 crew chief for Trackhouse Racing is guiding the hopes for hometown sports hero Daniel Suárez this weekend, but he’s also trying to optimize performance in the thinner air at 7,300-plus feet. Racing-simulator data, he said, only goes so far. Learning from real-world experience just how the elevation has sapped some of the cars’ horsepower and downforce has been at a premium.
“It’s hard to calibrate your sim tools and use the simulator when you don’t have a baseline to compare to,” Swiderski told NASCAR.com. “So everything’s an unknown. The altitude’s played a big factor on trying to guess what cooling we need for the engines, for the brakes, for the transaxles, so trying to figure that all out in two pretty short practices is definitely a big challenge.”
The distance above sea level aside, crew chiefs are also searching for the right balance on a circuit with high-speed stretches and tricky technical sections. Swiderski says “typically at road courses, we fight the rear of the car a lot more, and from everybody I’ve been scanning, it’s harder to wake the front up here, and so that’s probably the one surprise that we’ve got to work through.”
For Chris Gayle, crew chief for the No. 11 Joe Gibbs Racing Toyota, another curveball is making the adjustment to a substitute driver, with Ryan Truex filling in this weekend for Denny Hamlin while he is on paternity leave. Battling the elevation’s effects and matching up the simulations to actual race-collected data and feedback is the other focus.
“For us, it’s just the unknown is the biggest thing, right?” Gayle told NASCAR.com. “We’ve seen the race course, and we can come up with what we think the race course should be, but you don’t do a good job of even running the simulator with that, because what makes that more accurate is being there once and coming back and re-tuning things to make it more like the reality, right? You don’t get that here. So it’s just the unknown of here. You mention the elevation, the unknown of the elevation: Are we going to need emergency cooling? Are we not? A lot of calculations have been done to try to say what we think is going to happen, but those aren’t solid either till we get some data here. So it’s just, you have to be flexible and fluid, I guess this weekend.”
RELATED: See where drivers will pit for Sunday’s race
History tells us …
Expect Chase Elliott to figure in. The last five first-time races at road courses have been won by Chevrolet drivers, and Elliott accounts for three of those, winning in debut Cup visits to Road America, Circuit of The Americas and the Daytona road course. Elliott has yet to finish outside the top 20 this year, and his Hendrick Motorsports team tops the Cup Series in wins, poles, top fives, top 10s and laps led since the Next Gen car’s debut in 2022. A win Sunday would be Elliott’s 20th in Cup.
He may not be the favorite to win, but watch out for …
KYLE BUSCH. Rowdy ranks 15th in the Cup Series points, but some indicators point toward a rewarding road-course result Sunday. Busch led the majority of the laps in NASCAR’s most recent road-circuit event, challenging eventual winner Christopher Bell until slightly fading to a fifth-place outcome. He is also a former Mexico City winner, prevailing here in 2008 in what is now called the Xfinity Series.
Fantasy update
NASCAR Fantasy Live expert Dustin Albino provides insight for your Sunday lineup.
The hype has been real this weekend in Mexico City, and many of the road-course specialists who were expected to run up front have backed it up. Shane van Gisbergen became the third driver in Cup history to score his first two pole awards on road courses (Dan Gurney and Tyler Reddick). Michael McDowell paced opening practice on Friday and followed it up with a fifth-place qualifying effort. Across practice and qualifying, however, it might be Ty Gibbs who has the best overall car, cracking the top three in single-lap speed, plus he was stout over the long haul. He flipped my mind in the featured matchup against Chase Elliott. Sunday is setting up for a prime chance for Gibbs to punch his playoff ticket. Other drivers who impressed: Ryan Preece, Todd Gilliland, and Ross Chastain.
Lineup: Shane van Gisbergen, Michael McDowell, Ty Gibbs, Chris Buescher, AJ Allmendinger
Garage: Kyle Busch
MORE: Get lineup advice in Fantasy Fastlane
Speed reads
Our biggest pieces of the week — get covered for race day from all angles.
• NASCAR at Mexico City: Key information, links, results through the weekend | Read more
• In-Season Challenge: Seeding format, schedule, additional information | Read more
• Racing Insights: Full finishing order projections for Sunday’s Viva Mexico 250 | Read more
• Field of 16: Sweet homecoming looming in Mexico City for Daniel Suárez? | Read more
• Turning Point to Mexico: Trackhouse Racing finding rhythm | Read more
• At-track photos: Scenes, sights from Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez | View gallery
• NASCAR Classics: Rewind to Xfinity action from Mexico City | Watch races
• Paint Scheme Preview: Fresh designs ready for international stage | View gallery
• Power Rankings: How the Cup Series field stacks up before Mexico | Read more
Read the full article here