IndyCar News: NASCAR outmaneuvered IndyCar in Mexico (Update)
With Mexico City now hosting F1, NASCAR Cup and Formula E, Mexican Pato O’Ward spoke on how IndyCar was a day late and a dollar short getting into the Mexico City Market. Mexicans can’t afford to buy tickets to four big races.
You snooze, you lose!
“They beat us to the cake. We’re not only late, but I strongly believe that there isn’t more room in Mexico City. Like, not only did they beat us there, but now that is not an option for IndyCar. You need to understand that these people save up their money to go to these events,” O’Ward told ESPN, when asked whether IndyCar has a future in Mexico.
IndyCar missed locking in a deal in 2022 and 2023 and by 2024 NASCAR sealed their fate.
“OK, maybe you can’t get it done for 2022, but there should have been a very hard push for it to be done by 2023 and at the latest, 2024. Obviously, if I had all the money in the world, it would have already been part of the calendar,” lamented O’Ward.
September 4, 2024
The NASCAR Cup Series is set to stage a race in Mexico City in 2025, with the announcement catching IndyCar with their pants down – the series that’s always a day late and a dollar short against it’s #1 enemy – NASCAR.
–by Mark Cipolloni–
Last week, NASCAR announced the Cup Series would travel to Mexico City to race at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, where Formula 1 has been staged. For the first time since 1958, the NASCAR Cup Series will race in Mexico City to mark the series’ first international points race, which will take place on June 15, 2025.
As a result, IndyCar star Pato O’Ward fumed to IndyCar’s executives, who ultimately failed to secure a race in Mexico after years of giving it lip service. The 25-year-old claimed his management team had reached out and assisted IndyCar in the process, only for NASCAR to beat them to the punch.
“Since 2021, I’ve been very direct on my aspirations of racing in Mexico and I’ve been very vocal along with pretty persuasive and just kind of getting things in line to get the race going,” O’Ward said.
“Me and all of my team speaking to what is now Penske Entertainment because they obviously own (IndyCar) so without their approval, and we wouldn’t be able to make (a deal), but it’s been three years that I continuously push for it. All of my efforts have been shut down.”
Penske Entertainment CEO Mark Miles told reporters that Mexico City race promoters informed IndyCar officials that neither the series nor O’Ward was at a level that could command a crowd worthy of a race. In other words, sorry boys, you’re too minor league.
IndyCar and Mexico City are still talking, but the earliest any event can be secured will be for 2026 and Mexico City will already be hosting three bigger events each year – Formula 1, NASCAR and Formula E.