All info you need to see before the 2024 Mexico F1 GP starts

After a controversial race at Austin, Formula 1 is back with the 2024 Mexico City Grand Prix. The race at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez will be the 20th Grand Prix of a 2024 campaign that has yet to show us a true fight for the World Drivers' Championship, while the World Constructors' Championship is heating up.

Ferrari’s First 1-2 in Texas Shakes Up 2024 Championship

Ferrari is coming off a solid 1-2 in the US Grand Prix with Charles Leclerc winning the race ahead of Carlos Sainz. A huge battle between the Top 2 in the WDC, Max Verstappen and Lando Norris, decided third place in the race at Texas. Norris received a penalty during the battle against the championship leader, leaving the McLaren driver in fourth.

Despite not winning a race in the last nine, Verstappen leads the WDC for Red Bull with 354 points, 57 ahead of Norris (297). Leclerc, on his side, is third with 275 points and two wins in the last four events.

Among Constructors, McLaren (Norris and Oscar Piastri) leads with 544 points, 40 ahead of Red Bull (Verstappen and Sergio Pérez), and 48 ahead of the Scuderia Ferrari.

Mercedes (Sir Lewis Hamilton and George Russell) remains lonely in fourth with 344 points, and has scored one podium in the last six events. Haas (38 points with Nico Hulkenberg and Kevin Magnussen) took full advantage of last week's Sprint format and scored in both races, surpassing RB for sixth in the WCC. RB saw Liam Lawson score points in his first race back with the team, finishing ninth at the Circuit of the Americas.

Franco Colapinto, who looks like a superstar in the making, scored points for Williams with a solid race in Texas. The team (with Colapinto and Alex Albon) is eighth with 17 points. The Argentine driver has scored points in two of his four races.

Sauber (Zhou Guanyu and Valtteri Bottas) remains scoreless.

2024 Mexico City GP Facts & Figures

The 2024 edition of the Mexico City Grand Prix will be the 24th Formula 1 World Championship race in the country.

The first edition of the Mexican Grand Prix occurred in 1962, with a non-championship race at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, which was then named Magdalena Mixhuca. Jim Clark and Trevor Taylor, who shared their Lotus car, won the race.

However, the first Mexican Grand Prix saw tragedy, with Ricardo Rodríguez suffering a fatal crash during practice. The circuit was renamed after that 1962 race, and today celebrates the lives of Ricardo and his brother Pedro, a two-time race-winner in Formula 1. Pedro also suffered a fatal crash; during a sports car event in Germany in 1971.

The first era of the official Mexican Grand Prix lasted from 1963 to 1970, and the event sealed the World Drivers’ Championship three times during that span because it was often near the end of the calendar.

In 1964, John Surtees became the first (and so far only) man to win the motorcycle World Riders’ Championship and Formula 1 World Drivers’ Championship. He sealed his title in Mexico, beating Graham Hill and Jim Clark. Clark led the first 63 laps of the race and was on course to win the title before a mechanical failure ended his title quest.

Denny Hulme sealed the 1967 WDC at Mexico after finishing third and protecting his championship lead against his Brabham teammate Jack Brabham, who finished second in the race behind Jim Clark.

Graham Hill did the same in 1968, as he won the race to beat Jackie Stewart’s Matra and Hulme’s McLaren in the final race of the season, in Mexico.

Crowd control became a problem in the late 1960s, and the 1970 Mexican Grand Prix, with a crowd of 200,000 was brutal in terms of safety for the crowd and drivers, and the event did not return to the calendar until the mid-1980s. Pedro Rodríguez’s death on July 11th, 1971, played a part in the cancellation of the 1971 Mexican Grand Prix as well.

The event returned to the F1 calendar in 1986, at the same track, and Gerhard Berger took his maiden GP win after tyre issues hindered the main contenders. It was also the first win of the Benetton team.

The 1987 race was weird, with Nelson Piquet finishing first on the track but Nigel Mansell winning for Williams because he had a 30-second lead when the race was stopped midway due to a red flag.

Alain Prost won for McLaren in the MP4/4 in 1988, and Ayrton Senna gave the Woking team consecutive wins at Mexico with a triumph in 1989. The 1990 race was arguably the best Mexican Grand Prix in recent decades, as Ayrton Senna lost the win in the late stages due to a puncture and Alain Prost emerged as the leader for Ferrari after starting 13th on the grid.

Moreover, the battle for second was amazing between Senna’s and Prost’s teammates, Gerhard Berger and Nigel Mansell. Berger overtook Mansell late, with the Englishman returning the favor with one of the greatest overtakes in F1 history, around the outside in the final corner, the Peraltada, giving Ferrari a 1-2.

Williams-Renault dominated the 1991 and 1992 events, with Riccardo Patrese and Mansell, respectively. The 1992 event, however, saw pressure from FISA to make the track safer, while there were rumours of financial problems from the organizers of the event. Ultimately, Mexico left the F1 calendar again.

Max Verstappen, Red Bull Racing RB15, Lewis Hamilton, Mercedes AMG F1 W10 and Lando Norris, McLaren MCL34 battle at the start of the race during the 2019 Formula One Mexican Grand Prix at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, on October 27, 2019 in Mexico City, Mexico. (Photo by Joe Portlock / LAT Images)

The Mexican Grand Prix returned to Formula 1 in 2015, with a renewed Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez and it was a big event due to the presence of Mexican driver Sergio ‘Checo’ Pérez.

Mexican Esteban Gutiérrez was also in the driver mix, and it all helped in making the Mexican round a big party in the country. Mercedes dominated the 2015 and 2016 events, with Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton, respectively. Red Bull won consecutive races in 2017 and 2018 with Max Verstappen, who became the first driver to win straight races in the country since Jim Clark in the 1962 and 1963 editions (although the 1962 race was not part of the championship).

In the 2017 and 2018 races, Lewis Hamilton sealed his fourth and fifth World Drivers' Championships, respectively.

Hamilton and Mercedes returned to victory at Mexico in 2019 after the Englishman had a first-lap encounter with Verstappen in the first corner and both went off the track. The 2020 race was canceled due to the pandemic, but the 2021 event was successful, although the race was known as the Mexico City Grand Prix due to financial support from the Mexico City government.

Verstappen won the 2021, 2022 and 2023 events comfortably ahead of Hamilton.

Among drivers, Max Verstappen is at the top with five victories, while Jim Clark, Alain Prost, Nigel Mansell, and Lewis Hamilton are tied with two wins in Mexico. Clark has three wins, but the first one was not an official Grand Prix. Among teams, Red Bull's five victories are the most for any team.

Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez Track Info

The Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, at Mexico City, Mexico, is a 4.304-km long circuit with 17 corners that will demand great balance to Formula 1 cars, due to the number of turns it has and the long main straight

Its elevation of over 2,200 meters plays a big role too, as it affects the cars’ aerodynamics and can often change the pecking order seen at other circuits due to the thin air. The fast final corner, Peraltada, was the main feature of the track in past decades. However, since its return to F1 in 2015, part of the Peraltada was modified, and the Foro Sol, previously a baseball stadium, is now part of the track, and is surely one of the most spectacular images seen in F1 during race day.

The podium also takes place at the Foro Sol, instead of the usual site at the pit building.

There will be three DRS sections in the 2024 event: on the main straight, between turns 3 and 4, and between turns 11 and 12.

The race will be run over a distance of 305.354 km and will have 71 laps.

The lap record at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez was established by Valtteri Bottas, driving for Mercedes in 2021, with a 1:17.774 min lap in the race. Daniel Ricciardo established the outright Fastest Lap in Qualifying for the 2018 race, with a 1:14.759 min lap in the Red Bull RB14.

2024 Mexico City Grand Prix - Tyres

The dry tyres for the 2024 Mexico City Grand Prix will be the C3 as P Zero White hard, C4 as P Zero Yellow Medium, and C5 as P Zero Red soft.

Pirelli's Press Release explained the company's view for the upcoming weekend: "At the circuit named in honour of the brothers, Pedro and Ricardo Rodriguez, the available tyres are the C3 as Hard, the C4 as Medium and the C5 as Soft, a step softer than in the past, as was already the case last year, the decision taken in order to open up more strategic options for the race.

The first day of track action, Friday 25 October, will be slightly different to usual. The second free practice session will be entirely given over to validating the softer compounds in Pirelli’s 2025 range (C4, C5 and C6) in what is known as an in-competition test. The session is extended by 30 minutes to 90 and all drivers and teams will have to follow a specific programme established by the Pirelli engineers.

Apart from the dry tyre allocation specifically for the Grand Prix (two sets of Hard, three of Medium and seven of Soft, one less than usual), each driver will have two additional sets of tyres: one will be identical to the one available for the weekend, to act as a baseline, while the other will be a 2025 prototype option, both in terms of compound and of construction – actually the latter already homologated back in September.

These two sets will not have any sidewall colour bands. The plan is for the programme to include a performance run and a long run for each set, with every team running the same number of laps with the same quantity of fuel on board, dependent on the type of run. The only exception will be in the case of a regular race driver being replaced for FP1 by a young driver.

These race drivers will carry out the Pirelli test for 60 minutes of FP2 only and will have an additional set of Medium compound tyres to catch up as much as possible on acquiring data for the rest of the weekend. All the test data will then be analysed by Pirelli engineers to fine tune the characteristics of the compounds prior to the group test in Abu Dhabi, which starts on the Tuesday after the final round of the 2024 championship. It means that teams will have to prepare their cars for qualifying and the race in the space of two hours: FP1 on Friday and FP3 on Saturday.

...In terms of strategy, this is usually a one-stop race. Last year, the majority of drivers tried to manage the Medium to lengthen the first stint as much as possible. A Safety Car and a later red flag, after Kevin Magnussen went off the track in the Haas, meant that nearly the entire field used three sets of tyres in a race that was pretty much divided in two."

The minimum starting pressures for the tyres will be 23.0 PSI (front) and 21.0 PSI (rear).

2024 Mexico City Grand Prix - Weather Forecast

Friday, Oct 25th - FP1 & FP2
Conditions: Decreasing clouds
Max. temperature: 23°C
Chance of rain: 4%

Saturday, Oct 26th - FP3 & Qualifying
Conditions: Partly sunny and pleasant
Max. temperature: 22°C
Chance of rain: 16%

Sunday, Oct 27th - Race
Conditions: Partly sunny and pleasant
Max. temperature: 21°C
Chance of rain: 10%

Who will be on the 2024 Mexico City Grand Prix podium?

2023 Mexico F1 Grand Prix podium: Race winner Max Verstappen (Red Bull), 2nd Lewis Hamilton (Mercedes) & 3rd Charles Leclerc (Ferrari)

The layout of the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez could favor McLaren on its own. However, pecking order changes are usual in Mexico, with the high altitude often playing a role.

In that regard, Red Bull has dominated the Mexican round of the F1 calendar, and a victory in the 2024 event would be a huge step towards securing the World Drivers' Championship for Max Verstappen.

It could be a thrilling three-way fight, with the Scuderia Ferrari joining the fight at the top as well. In that case, let us hope that the stewards work fairly for all drivers.

The prediction for the Top 3 of the 2024 Mexico City Grand Prix is 1. Lando Norris, 2. Max Verstappen, 3. Charles Leclerc.

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