Mark Miles “could imagine” IndyCar racing in Mexico again

Miles was speaking at the announcement of the results of the 2022 Global Fan Survey that was commissioned by IndyCar, hosted by Motorsport Network, and analyzed by Nielsen Sports, in which one of the key findings was that fans voted Mexico’s Pato O’Ward as the series' second-most popular driver, behind only Romain Grosjean.

O’Ward said last year, “I always tell everybody, ‘If we go back to Mexico, it's going to be a sold-out event and it's going to be awesome!’.

Miles was asked by a journalist from Mexico City about the strong appetite for an event there and what that might mean in future.

“There's a lot of good news that this confirms for us,” said Miles of the Survey. “Our distribution outside the U.S. in terms of media partners and frankly our rights fees, which are up over 40 percent from last year to this, is other types of evidence that that audience is there. This is just confirmation.

“I think our strategy is that we're going to continue to focus our racing in North America. For those of you in Mexico City, you'll know that we know that Mexico is in North America!

“In our minds, in terms of time zone, in terms of the complexity of getting everything packed up and flying versus driving, it's not really much different to go from Indianapolis or even Charlotte or Houston or Chicago where we have teams based to Mexico than it is to go to Portland or California.

“We've long seen Mexico as a market where we could imagine racing. We've got to find the right place under the right circumstances, but we are interested in racing in Mexico if we can put all the pieces together.”

Indy cars – in the form of the Champ Car World Series – last raced at Mexico’s Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in 2007.

Miles said he now wants to study the data in depth, to help guide future choices about which markets he could expand the series into.

“I want to understand the different perspectives in the U.S., for example, versus France and on and on and on, and that will guide us in the way we continue to go to market,” he said. “There was a lot in it for us. We're still unpacking it.

“It will help guide us as we appeal to fans and as we reach out to grow the sport through the acquisition of new fans.”