NASCAR Mexico City Preview

 


    The NASCAR Cup Series comes rolling into Mexico City for the first time since 2008, when the now Xfinity Series last raced there. During that race, Kyle Busch claimed victory at the 2.49 mile circuit. The Cup Series will race at 3:00 EST, 1:00 local time. 


Last Race

    The Cup Series raced on June 8th at Michigan International Speedway. Denny Hamlin claimed victory over second place finisher Chris Buescher and third place finisher Ty Gibbs. This was a very intriguing fuel mileage finish that saw Carson Hocevar and William Byron have to pit in the closing laps of the race. Hocevar had a left rear tire go down and William Byron did not have the fuel to make it. This was Hamlin's 3rd victory on the season and he became the 10th driver to win after their 700th start. The 21 year cup veteran has had a standout 2025 season with JGR and he will look to continue his impressive season after Mexico City.




Looking Towards the Race

    One of the most important aspects of Road Course racing with the Next Gen car is qualifying. This is especially important because in the 18 races on road courses and street circuits, the winner has started in the top ten 15 times. The average starting position of those winners is 7.05, with the worst coming at the 2024 Watkins Glen race, where Chris Buescher started 24th. This likely means that those that qualify well on Saturday are going to be the favorites to win come the race on Sunday. That said, Mexico City is an entire new course and we've seen crazy things happen at these new tracks like at Indy, COTA, and Chicago.

    NASCAR held 2 separate practice sessions on Friday evening. The first practice session was topped by Michael McDowell (94.024), Chase Briscoe (94.136), Ty Gibbs (94.141), Austin Cindric (94.155), and Kyle Larson (94.246). The drivers with the best 5 lap averages were Shane Van Gisbergen, Michael McDowell, Ty Gibbs, Christopher Bell, and Kyle Larson. Ty Gibbs led in 10 lap averages to close the first practice.

    The second practice was topped by Todd Gilliland (93.496), Ross Chastain (93.636), Ty Gibbs (93.814), Ryan Blaney (93.842), and Chris Buescher (93.056). The drivers with the best 5 lap average were Ty Gibbs Ross Chastain, Austin Cindric, Ryan Preece, and Ryan Blaney. As for 10 lap averages, this was led by Christopher Bell. 

   On Saturday afternoon, qualifying for the Cup Series took place with Shane Van Gisbergen claiming pole in the shortened qualifying session. This is because of rain in the area, so NASCAR decided to run one 55 minute qualifying session but this session ended 17 minutes early. As a result, Van Gisbergen claimed pole over Ryan Preece who had his best career qualifying effort on a road course starting second. The full qualifying order can be found below: 

    There are some surprises within the top 10, as Ryan Preece (2nd) and Todd Gilliland (7th) are typically not guys that are viewed as great road course racers. That said, they both have really good starting positions for Sunday's race. Josh Berry (13th) and Erik Jones (14th) also get decent starting positions as they normally run towards the back at road courses.

    Notable drivers that start somewhat far back include Tyler Reddick (22nd), William Byron (27th), Alex Bowman (29th), and Christopher Bell (31st). I think these drivers are pretty important because they normally run towards the front in these types of races. According to Daniel Cespedes on X, Reddick has earned the most points on road courses on average in the Next Gen Era. Bell ranks 4th, Byron ranks 7th, and Bowman ranks 13th. Furthermore, all of these drivers have won on a road course in the Next Gen Era, so it'll be interesting to see if they can move forward come the race.

My Favorites 

    Each week on X, I like to try and make predictions about where each driver will finish in the upcoming race. This week, my predictions had Tyler Reddick winning at Mexico City. Now, these predictions were done prior to qualifying and practice so I'm not so sure about Reddick winning now. That said, Reddick is still a threat in my eyes to at least battle for a top finishing position late in this race. He's led the most laps on road courses in the Next Gen era with 206 and has the 3rd best average finish at 10.72. 

    Taking into account what happened at qualifying this weekend, I believe that SVG is the likely favorite now. He qualified on pole, has a solid average finish of 12.42 which includes the wreck at Chicago last year, and he led a lot of laps at COTA earlier this season. I feel pretty good about him getting the win with Saturday's context. He hasn't been very mistake prone either, so I think as long as gets out front then he will do a good job of driving away.

    I do believe that there are several other strong contenders that could battle SVG for the win. Ross Chastain has been decent at road courses with a 14.27 average finish and he has the 6th most laps led at 96. It has been a while since Chastain last won a road course, as he last won at COTA in 2022. Still, I think he has a strong case especially starting 3rd.
   
    Ty Gibbs has a decent case to get his first career win this weekend. He ran well in the Xfinity Series race today before the crash near the end of the race. Though he did not run super well at COTA earlier this season, he has historically been alright at road courses with this car. I hope that the team can stay up on adjustments because they seem to get worse and worse as the day goes on. 

    I'll mention a few other guys that I think could very well win as well. Michael McDowell won Indy in 2023 and he has historically been a good road course racer. He struggled at COTA earlier this year, so we will see if that was just a fluke. Kyle Larson is tied with the most wins at road courses in the Next Gen era with 3, and he rolls off 6th. Aj Allmendinger won the Royal in 2023 and has also been a good road course racer as well. Daniel Suárez has struggled more and more at road courses as the years have gone on with the car, but he did win the Xfinity race at Mexico City so he can not be forgotten. Kyle Busch (11th), Chase Elliott (12th), and Chris Buescher (16th) are other contenders that I have my eyes on.

    




Fantasy Picks


    With this being a road course race, it gives me an opportunity to use guys that I typically would not use at most NASCAR races. My first driver this week is SVG, who I believe is the favorite to win as of right now. My second driver is Chase Elliott, who doesn't start right up front, but has run really well at Road Courses. He may not have a win on a road course in the Next Gen Era, but he does have the 2nd best average finish at 10.23. My third driver is Aj Allmendinger, who should run well so long as chaos doesn't happen. The fourth driver I have is Michael McDowell, who I am slightly hesitant on but has historically done well at road courses. The fifth driver I have in my lineup is Chris Buescher, who seems to always find a way to finish well at Road Courses, even if it doesn't start up front. For my garage pick this week, I am rolling with Kyle Busch who led the most laps at COTA and finished 5th there.


    I wanted to try something different with my free time this week, so I might make this a weekly thing for the future. I'll see but I enjoyed writing this out. Thank you all for reading! At the bottom of the page is a link to my predictions for the Mexico City race this week!





https://x.com/StevenP30409193/status/1932227620923404673

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The In-Season Tournament

Image
      For the first time in NASCAR's history, NASCAR is having their own in season tournament. Similar to that of the NCAA March Madness tournament, 32 drivers will compete for a chance at winning a million dollars. The challenge spans over 5 races which includes Atlanta, Chicago, Sonoma, Dover, and Indianapolis. Fans are also able to participate to have a chance to win a million dollars too! Today, I want to dive into each matchup and give you all my predictions for the in-season tournament. The Round of 32     I'm not going to go super in depth into my picks for each matchup as there are a lot of matchups to get too. That said, the first round takes place at Atlanta, which is about as wild-card of a round as it gets. Atlanta, however, is not the most random  super speedway. Atlanta is more in the drivers control because of how important handling has become. It's refreshing to see Atlanta not be a random lottery as to who wins. As a result, ...
Read more

Phoenix Race Review

Image
     Ryan Blaney     Ryan Blaney is able to pick up his first win of the 2026 season at Phoenix Raceway after holding off Christopher Bell for the last 10 laps. Blaney ran up inside the top 5 for much of the race, but had multiple loose wheels that put up in the back, where he had to race his way back up to the front. An Austin Dillon caution with about 25 laps to go led to a split pit strategy, where guys like Blaney, Ty Gibbs, Kyle Larson, and more took just two tires. whereas Bell & Hamlin took 4 tires to try and be on the attack. That said, a caution on the next restart involving Zane Smith, John Hunter Nemechek, and Ty Dillon hurt Bell and Hamlin's chances of catching Blaney who moved past Gibbs and Larson on the last restart.     Blaney's win at Phoenix adds to the elite resume that Blaney has built up at the track. Since 2021, he has just two finishes outside the top 5, which was a 10th at the Spring 2021 race and a 28th place finish in...
Read more

COTA Race Review

Image
     Tyler Reddick      Tyler Reddick has achieved something that hasn't been done since 1949 which is win the first 3 races of a NASCAR season. Everything has gone right so far for this 45 team, as he has a 70 point lead over his teammate Bubba Wallace in the points standings. Reddick is currently in his 4th season with 23XI, and he's already got 8 wins with the team. This is including his winless 2025 season, where he still finished 9th in the final standings. He's got a major lead in the standings, and with how well rounded he has become, I expect him to stay at the top for a while moving forward.     The most impressive thing to me with Reddick is that he's done this during the Next Gen Era, where parity is at its highest. The most wins a driver has had in a season with this car is 6 which was achieved by both William Byron and Denny Hamlin. That said, Reddick could realistically break that record because he's good at every trac...
Read more