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Carlos Sainz’s yellow and black Renault on track during the 2017 Mexican Grand Prix in Mexico City.

HISTORY · MEXICO CITY GRAND PRIX

Mexico City.
Champions in the stadium.

Three racing eras, one high-altitude stage and the corners that turned individual races into championship history.

Photo: Gobierno CDMX / Wikimedia Commons, CC0

By Does Your Duck Quack

At a glance

Mexico City’s Grand Prix history combines decisive championship afternoons, a daunting banked corner and a return that put spectators at the centre of the show. The setting is the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez: a circuit whose modern stadium sequence occupies part of the space once swept through by the original Peraltada.

Its history falls into three championship chapters: 1963–1970, 1986–1992 and the modern period beginning in 2015. A separate, non-championship race in 1962 came first. That distinction matters when old photographs and anniversary celebrations describe the event’s age: the beginning of Formula 1 racing here precedes its first points-paying Grand Prix. The organiser explains the three eras.

For a first visit, keep two pictures in mind: the old uninterrupted sweep towards the straight and today’s slow passage between stadium stands. They explain why footage from different decades can look familiar and surprisingly different at once.

Origins

The venue began in 1959 in Mexico City’s Magdalena Mixhuca sports park. Formula 1’s circuit account describes a project that used the park’s internal roads, supported by the father of Ricardo and Pedro Rodríguez. The familiar family name therefore belongs to the story of racing’s arrival here, as well as to the name spectators read above the circuit gates. F1’s account of the circuit’s construction.

In November 1962 the capital staged a Formula 1 race without World Championship points. The following October it joined the championship properly. The organiser’s history keeps those events separate, even when celebrating both as part of the same sporting tradition. Reading them together captures the ambition of the project: an international race could establish an audience before becoming a permanent part of the title contest. The promoter’s account of the early years.

That beginning also carried a terrible loss. Ricardo Rodríguez died following an accident during practice for the 1962 event. His brother Pedro competed in the inaugural championship race the next year, alongside fellow Mexican Moisés Solana. The home connection was therefore present from the outset; it was never simply an overseas championship borrowing a convenient piece of tarmac. The human history should sit beside the excitement when remembering that first generation.

Clark won the 1963 championship edition, and Mexico became an important late-season destination. This geographical distance from the championship’s European heart gave the race a particular dramatic purpose: when the title remained undecided, the journey ended with an unfamiliar environment and little room for recovery. One difficult afternoon could become the final word on an entire campaign.

Viewed from Britain, the origins are especially rewarding because they connect names familiar from Lotus, BRM and Ferrari histories with a place that supplied its own drivers and expectations. The teams arrived with competing technical ideas; Mexico brought a demanding circuit and a national sporting identity. Those two strands would continue to shape its Grand Prix through every interruption and revival.

How the circuit has changed

Smart move

The most important change for understanding old race film is at the end of the lap. The original Peraltada carried cars through a long, fast, banked right-hander. The modern layout interrupts that sweep with a route through the former Foro Sol baseball stadium before rejoining the latter part of the old corner. It preserves a connection with the old outline while changing both the driving problem and the spectator experience. F1’s description of the old and new routes.

That stadium sequence turns racing into something unusually concentrated. Cars slow between facing grandstands, and the podium ceremony takes place in the same arena rather than being confined to the pit complex. A spectator can therefore experience the conclusion of the event in a space deliberately associated with the race’s public identity. The fast straight and the stadium serve different appetites: one emphasises speed and braking, the other proximity and collective celebration. F1 explains the stadium and podium setting.

The 2015 return involved much more than inserting a few corners. F1’s contemporary construction report describes a new pit and paddock complex, a resurfaced track, a repositioned main straight and revised sections elsewhere around the lap. The Esses were reworked within a constrained strip of land, with available runoff helping determine their new shape. These changes explain why comparing an old map with the current plan requires more care than tracing a single familiar bend. F1’s report from the rebuilding project.

The rebuilt circuit officially reopened in October 2015. The final corner of the revised section was named for Mansell, linking the new route to a driver strongly associated with its predecessor. This is an unusually clear example of a modern safety project preserving a historical reference even while replacing the manoeuvre that made the place famous. The name invites a memory; the current geometry asks drivers a different question. F1’s reopening report.

Altitude remains part of the circuit’s identity across those changes. The venue sits more than two kilometres above sea level. F1’s technical explanation highlights the effects of thinner air on downforce, cooling and power-unit operation. For a spectator, the useful historical lesson is that a high-downforce appearance does not mean the car is working as it would at a low-lying circuit. The environment changes the meaning of what you see.

Our reading of the layout is to follow three contrasting scenes: the crowded approach to the first braking zone, the rhythm of the middle corners, then the contained theatre of the stadium. That gives an old circuit a readable modern shape without pretending that the current lap recreates the risks or speeds of every earlier era.

Great races and moments

1964: a championship changes hands at the finish

Graham Hill, John Surtees and Clark arrived with championship possibilities. Hill’s race was damaged by contact with Lorenzo Bandini, while Clark’s position at the front eventually unravelled through an oil leak and engine failure. Bandini yielded a position to Surtees, who finished second behind Dan Gurney and took the title. The winning driver and the new world champion were different people, which is the essential detail to carry into any retelling. F1 reconstructs the title showdown; the official race result.

Its appeal lies in the changing calculation rather than a single overtaking move. Each contender could appear secure until another car’s trouble altered the arithmetic. When watching historic footage, follow the championship positions as well as the running order; the story becomes much richer than a final-lap surprise.

1965 and 1986: first victories with lasting consequences

Richie Ginther won for Honda in 1965, driving the RA272. Honda identifies that Mexican Grand Prix as its first Formula 1 victory and returned the car to the circuit for a commemorative run in 2025. The small white machine belongs to Mexico’s history as firmly as the later turbocharged and hybrid cars: its importance comes from what the result began, not from matching modern lap times. Honda’s account of the RA272 victory.

Smart move

The anniversary became a visible link across generations when Yuki Tsunoda drove the RA272 at the 2025 Mexican weekend, sixty years after Ginther’s win. Honda prepared the preserved car for the demonstration. A historic machine moving around its original winning venue offers something a trophy cabinet cannot: a chance to compare the scale and proportions of an earlier Formula 1 car with the machinery competing nearby. For a first-time fan, it is an accessible reminder that the circuit’s history contains several very different ideas of what a Grand Prix car should be.

When the Grand Prix returned in 1986, Gerhard Berger delivered both his own and Benetton’s first championship win. Mansell’s recollections of that meeting describe the difficulty of altitude, a rough surface and grip that could change. The result rewards attention to the whole racing package, particularly tyre durability, rather than assuming the quickest-looking contender must prevail. Mansell’s interview about the returning race.

1990: the move that outgrew the result

Mansell’s outside pass on Berger at Peraltada became the signature image of the old circuit. Yet Alain Prost won the race, with Mansell completing a Ferrari one-two and Berger finishing third. Restoring that context makes the pass more interesting: a celebrated act of judgement settled second place within a race won by a different approach. Spectacle and the final victory can belong to separate drivers. The 1990 classification; F1 recalls the outside pass.

2015 and 2025: return, then renewal

Nico Rosberg won the first championship race after the long absence, ahead of Lewis Hamilton and Valtteri Bottas. The 2015 classification marks a clean starting point for the modern stadium era. It connects the rebuilt venue with its first actual competitive outcome, rather than allowing reopening ceremonies to stand in for the race itself. The 2015 result.

In 2025 Lando Norris won ahead of Charles Leclerc and Verstappen, taking the championship lead. It was McLaren’s first Mexican victory since Ayrton Senna’s in 1989. For British fans, that afternoon added a new name to a story often dominated by Clark, Mansell and Hamilton. Mexico’s past is continually enlarged by new races, even when its most famous photographs remain decades old. F1’s 2025 race report; the accompanying statistics.

The British story in Mexico City

Clark gives Britain the opening championship chapter: victory in 1963, followed by another Mexican win in 1967. But the British connection is not a simple succession of victories. Mexico has repeatedly separated the satisfaction of winning the race from the larger prize of becoming champion. Surtees in 1964 is the clearest early example; Hill’s victory and second title in 1968 supply the contrasting version, with both honours secured together. The 1963 championship results; the 1967 winners; the 1968 results.

Mansell won here for Williams in 1987 and again in 1992. The two cars belonged to different technical moments, using Honda and Renault power respectively. The official classifications also show the strength of the teams around him: Nelson Piquet followed him home in 1987, while Riccardo Patrese completed another Williams one-two in 1992. His famous Ferrari pass in between those wins makes Mexico a compact journey through three important chapters of his career. The 1987 finishing order; the 1992 finishing order.

Hamilton’s championship celebrations here in 2017 and 2018 give a useful lesson in how to watch a title race. In 2017 he recovered to ninth after an opening-lap collision with Sebastian Vettel; Verstappen won, but Hamilton secured his fourth championship. The following year the title was settled again in Mexico, with Hamilton finishing away from the podium. The celebration was earned through the season’s accumulated position, not through a triumphant last-corner pass. F1’s 2017 report; F1 on the fifth championship.

Norris’s 2025 success added a McLaren victory to that British thread. It also offers a different point of entry for a new spectator: a recent result to connect with the older stories, rather than a requirement to adopt someone else’s nostalgia. The names change, but the circuit keeps presenting a familiar question about the balance between one afternoon and an entire championship campaign.

Before travelling, choose one British story to follow closely. It might be the fragile calculations of 1964, the nerve and tyre judgement behind the 1990 pass, or the unusual title-clinching finishes of Hamilton’s Mercedes years. Recognising a few locations and decisions is more satisfying than arriving with a long list of winners that means little when the cars appear.

Records and numbers

Results and historical totals in this section are correct to the end of the 2025 season. Championship races are counted separately from the 1962 non-championship meeting. That keeps anniversary language and sporting statistics aligned without merging events run for different purposes.

Mexico City’s key historical numbers
MeasureFigure and context
First championship edition1963, won by Jim Clark.
Modern circuit length4.304 kilometres; the scheduled Grand Prix is 71 laps.
Most wins at this venueMax Verstappen, five championship victories through 2025.
Mansell’s Mexican winsTwo: 1987 and 1992, both for Williams.
Norris’s 2025 victoryMcLaren’s first win here since 1989.

Sources: F1 circuit facts, 2025 race statistics, and the 1987 and 1992 classifications.

The layout measure describes the modern route, while the victory count spans different versions of the venue. Those are useful comparisons, provided their meanings stay visible. A modern car’s time cannot be read as a straightforward judgement on a driver who raced the old Peraltada: machinery, circuit geometry and the conditions of competition have all moved on.

A timeline

  • 1959: the circuit is established in the capital’s sports park, using the setting that remains the centre of its Grand Prix story.
  • 1962: Formula 1 cars contest a non-championship Mexican race; Ricardo Rodríguez dies following a practice accident.
  • 1963: Clark wins the first Mexican round to count towards the World Championship.
  • 1964–1965: Surtees secures the drivers’ title in Mexico; Ginther then gives Honda its first Formula 1 win.
  • 1968–1970: Hill wins the title-deciding 1968 race; the first championship era ends after 1970.
  • 1986: the race returns, with Berger and Benetton taking their first victory together.
  • 1987–1992: Mansell’s two Mexican wins bracket the period remembered for his 1990 outside pass.
  • 2015: a heavily rebuilt venue rejoins the championship, with Rosberg winning the returning Grand Prix.
  • 2017–2018: Hamilton secures successive drivers’ championships in Mexico as Verstappen wins both races.
  • 2025: Norris wins for McLaren, extending the British connection into another generation.

Follow the chronology through the organiser’s early history, Honda’s anniversary account, 2015 reopening report and 2025 official result. The long gaps are part of the event’s character: the same place has repeatedly returned to a championship that had changed substantially in its absence.

See it for yourself

Use the Mexico City Grand Prix visitor guide to turn the history into a workable trip from Britain. Start with the viewing experience you most want. If the stadium ceremony is the main attraction, examine the precise section offered by the ticket. If the old race film has made you curious about high speed and braking, compare the view of the straight and first corner instead.

Take an old and a current circuit map into your preparation. Find where the full Peraltada once ran, then trace the modern route through the stadium. This simple comparison helps avoid a common disappointment: buying a seat because a historic corner looked dramatic on film, without checking how the current course actually reaches it. The shape of the race has changed, and ticket descriptions should be read against today’s geometry.

Our grandstand and general-admission guide can help compare certainty, freedom to move and the detail visible from one position. Read first race weekend kit before packing for long days outdoors. For a family trip, the F1 with children guide adds the breaks and practical planning that a famous photograph cannot supply.

Keep the historic reading as a companion to the weekend. Watch one older race, choose a few landmarks, then leave room to notice the modern event for yourself. The stadium, the changing car sounds and the way the field arrives at the first braking zone will give you a personal connection to a story that began long before your ticket was booked.

FAQs

Was the first Mexican Grand Prix in 1962 or 1963?

Formula 1 raced in Mexico in 1962 in a non-championship event. The first Mexican Grand Prix to count towards the World Championship followed in 1963, when Jim Clark won. Both dates belong in the history, but they describe different milestones.

Does Formula 1 still race around the original Peraltada?

The modern route interrupts the old banked corner by taking cars through the stadium before rejoining its later section. The full uninterrupted sweep seen in older race footage is therefore different from the current Grand Prix layout.

Which driver had the most Mexican Grand Prix wins through 2025?

Max Verstappen had five championship victories at the Mexico City venue through the end of 2025. The figure covers his wins here, rather than victories at other races or non-championship events.

Why is Nigel Mansell associated so strongly with Mexico?

He won here in 1987 and 1992 and made a celebrated outside pass on Gerhard Berger at Peraltada in 1990. That manoeuvre secured second place in a race won by his Ferrari team mate Alain Prost.

Where should I begin when planning a first visit?

Read the Mexico City visitor guide, then compare the exact viewing sections on the current circuit map. Choose whether the stadium atmosphere, the pit straight or a braking-zone view matters most to your group before paying for tickets.

Sources