Confidence growing for Mexico IndyCar race in 2026

The IndyCar Series is feeling bullish about its chances of adding Mexico City to its calendar.

Ongoing talks between the track and Penske Entertainment have taken place for most of the decade, and after years of discussions, RACER understands the series has started speaking of a visit to the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez road course in Mexico City as something it expects to happen for 2026.

“Conversations continue to be positive and it’s certainly a place we want to be,” a Penske representative told RACER.

Timing for the race has been mentioned with an early position on the series’ upcoming schedule in March.

IndyCar opens its next championship on Feb. 27-March 1 at St. Petersburg, Fla. and has the new March 13-15 Arlington Grand Prix in Texas as the other confirmed date during the month. IMSA’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring follows Arlington and occupies its traditional date on the third weekend in March where a number of IndyCar teams and drivers participate. A return to race at The Thermal Club, which was held on the fourth weekend in March, has not been confirmed.

The arrival of IndyCar at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez would give the high-altitude venue its fourth major international offering. Leading the venue’s existing schedule, the circuit played host to Formula E in January, has NASCAR's Viva Mexico 250 this weekend and its most popular event of the year is slated for October with Formula 1.

Arrow McLaren’s Pato O’Ward, a native of Monterrey, Mexico, and reigning three-time IndyCar champion and new Indianapolis 500 winner Alex Palou, would be expected to shoulder a significant part of the Spanish-language promotions for the IndyCar event. It’s unclear whether other drivers from Latin America or Spain would be considered for one-off drives.

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An IndyCar race in Mexico City would represent a number of firsts for the series. Although previous iterations of the IndyCar Series raced in Mexico when the organization was known as CART and later as Champ Car, the trip to Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez would be the first for today’s series, which started out as the Indy Racing League in 1996. The all-oval IRL added road racing and was renamed as the IndyCar Series in 2005, bought the remnants of CART/Champ Car in 2008, and was purchased by Roger Penske under the Penske Entertainment banner late in 2019.

Other than an annual trek north for the Toronto Grand Prix, all of IndyCar’s races in the 2020s have been contested within the United States. The southward convoy would be the first for IndyCar since the last Brazilian Grand Prix was run in 2013 at the Sambadrome on the streets of Sao Paulo, and would add new chapters to what was once a standard part of the CART/Champ Car schedule.

In O’Ward’s home town of Monterrey, the 2.1-mile road course at Parque Fundidora hosted races from 2001-06, and Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez’s 2.7-mile layout was included as a second annual stop in Mexico from 2002-06. It continued for one more year in 2007 as Champ Car’s lone Mexican race before the series met its demise.

CART’s original appearance at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez dates back to 1980 on a 2.48-mile version of the road course, which was won by Rick Mears in a 1-2 finish for Penske Racing. The second edition of the Copa Mexico 150 was also won by Mears and Penske in 1981.