Ferrari looking for first Mexican GP win since 1990

Ferrari looking for first Mexican GP win since 1990. Ferrari won twice in Mexico.

Home to all 19 Mexican Grand Prix which counted towards the Formula 1 World Championship, the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez hosted the first event back in 1963. The 4.304 kilometre track has undergone a major renovation. The main straight is a good 1.2 kilometres long, but this is not a low downforce track. In fact, there are some slow corners and a series of esses where good aero downforce is a key requirement. The most distinctive part of the track was the final corner, called Peraltada, a long slightly raised hairpin, which leads onto the very fast main straight. The latest changes mean that that half the old Peraltada is no longer in use and now, a series of three slow corners join up to the mid-point of the corner.

Scuderia Ferrari won twice in Mexico, in 1970 with Jacky Ickx and in 1990 with Alain Prost. The Maranello team came close to winning the race in Mexico City last season, with Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Räikkönen finishing second and third, behind Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.

The first corner
The track has undergone several modifications and so there is no reference point for current F1 cars. However, it’s clear overtaking should be on the cards, especially at the first braking point.

Prost’s gem
In 1990 here, Alain Prost took possibly his best ever win for the Scuderia. The Frenchman managed the tyres perfectly and, with team-mate Nigel Mansell they secured a one-two finish, after the Englishman passed Gerhard Berger’s McLaren on the final lap.