Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone has confirmed that the Mexican Grand Prix will return next year, after a 23-year hiatus, with a race in Mexico City. Mr. Ecclestone first revealed the plan to bring F1 back to Mexico City in February last year in an interview with American motoring magazine Autoweek. It was also confirmed by sources who spoke to F1 website Pitpass and, since then, then plan has become reality.
According to Mexico City-based newspaper Reforma, F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone has signed a five-year deal for a Mexican Grand Prix to be staged at the city’s Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez starting in 2015. Per Reforma, the new deal has the support of the local and national governments, and also features an option to stay for an additional five-year period.
It will be held at Mexico City’s Autódromo Hermanos Rodriguez which last hosted an F1 race in 1992. The plan to revive the Mexican Grand Prix has the backing of an all-star management team which is driven by two key figures.
The first is Tavo Hellmund the creator and mastermind of the F1 USGP and the Circuit of the Americas in Austin. His counterpart in Mexico is Alejandro Soberon, chief executive of the world’s third largest live entertainment company CIE. The team members include Carlos Slim Domit who sits on the FIA’s decision-making body the Senate and is son of the world’s richest man Carlos Slim, George Gonzalez chief executive of CIE subsidiary Ocesa, and Federico Alaman, president of motorsports for Ocesa. They aren’t the only driving forces behind the race.
A Mexican round of the World Championship was listed on the 2014 provisional calendar, but when the final 2014 calendar came out in December, it was found that Mexico had not made the cut along with Korea and the proposed Grand Prix of America in New Jersey.
It is believed that a Mexican Grand Prix would be placed toward the end of the year to go alongside the USGP at Austin’s Circuit of the Americas, which usually enjoys a decent following of Mexican fans that cross the border to support countrymen Sergio Perez of Force India and Esteban Gutierrez of Sauber. Read more about the story here.
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