NASCAR adjusts Mexico City schedule after travel issues

NASCAR has adjusted the Friday and Saturday schedule in Mexico City after multiple industry members could not leave Charlotte, N.C., because of flight delays.

The travel issues occurred on Thursday, when the majority of the industry headed for Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. However, with two aircraft experiencing delays, multiple Xfinity Series and Cup Series teams and some drivers are still in Charlotte or looking elsewhere for flights to Mexico.

As such, NASCAR has pushed Xfinity Series practice from Friday to Saturday. Cup Series practice was shifted to later in the day on Friday, and, because of the change to Saturday’s schedule of events, Cup Series qualifying moved back that day. Sunday’s schedule has not changed.

Friday will now be as follows:

• The first NASCAR Mexico Series race will be at 11:30am local time
• Cup Series practice (there will be two) has shifted to 2:05pm and 3:30pm local time
• Xfinity Series practice moves to Saturday

Saturday will now be as follows:

• Xfinity Series teams will have a 50-minute practice at 9:05am local time
• Xfinity Series qualifying will be at 10:10am local time
• Cup Series qualifying has been moved to 12:05pm local time
• The second NASCAR Mexico Series race has been shifted to 5pm local time

Mexico City is in the Mountain time zone. It is two hours behind the East Coast.

The original weekend schedule would have put Xfinity Series and Cup Series teams on track Friday for the first time, with each series receiving two practice sessions. Saturday would have then seen qualifying for both series and the Xfinity Series race, the first for that series since 2008 in Mexico City.

Sunday is the inaugural event for the Cup Series in Mexico.