As you know, NASCAR made some history last weekend. The NASCAR Cup Series had its first international points race since 1958. It was also its first-ever visit to Mexico. The NASCAR Xfinity Series had visited four times previously, but on a different configuration that did not go through the Foro Sol. While it’s not the centerpiece of the Amazon Prime Video portion of the schedule, it was very important to NASCAR.
Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez is the most notable racetrack in Mexico, the host of the Grand Prix of Mexico intermittently since 1963. Racing through the Foro Sol is not originally a Formula One idea. In fact, it was CART in 2002 that did it first.
The track is named for Pedro and Ricardo Rodriguez, two of Mexico’s greatest racers. On NASCAR Live, an animated piece about the brothers aired. Quite simply, they were very skilled as racers and had very diverse skills. Pedro, in particular, won in Formula 1, won the 24 Hours of Le Mans, competed in NASCAR Grand National races and more before dying in a crash at the Norisring in 1971.
I thought the piece was nice. I’d argue that few fans watching the race in the United States knew much about the men for whom the track was named, and why not learn something? Unfortunately, the Rodriguez brothers came into motorsports in an especially dangerous period where death always seemed to be right around the corner.
Naturally, a lot of the focus this past weekend was on Daniel Suarez. Being the only Mexican racer in the Cup Series, it’s a big deal that he got to race in front of his countrymen. Another feature allowed Suarez to explain this significance in detail…in between checking out some grub.
I get the extra focus outside of the race on Suarez. It was clear that he was the prohibitive favorite of the fans at the track. NASCAR’s data indicated that 90% of the fans at the track were from within Mexico and 44% were locals to Mexico City. Just check the sound at the beginning of stage two when Suarez briefly took the lead from Michael McDowell on the restart. You knew who they were pulling for.
Despite that, Amazon Prime Video just isn’t doing a good enough job of previewing these races. Why does the most relevant information previewing the race tend to come from Steve Letarte talking to puppets? It’s so weird.
The race itself was sketchy. When I was prepping NASCAR on TV This Week Thursday, I saw substantially different weather forecasts for the weekend. Normally, I check a number of local TV affiliates to put together a weather outlook for you. I couldn’t do that for Mexico City. A couple of forecasts I saw for Sunday made it look like it was going to be dry. One indicated a decent chance of rain. Guess what we got.
I had no idea what to expect with the rain. No one had practiced in it. I’d never seen a race from the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in the rain. Heck, none of the Formula 1 races there have ever had a hint of rain.
Knowing what we know now, I have no idea why NASCAR started the race the way it did. Officials might as well have waived off the start and allowed everyone to switch tires like they did once at Circuit of the Americas. Better yet, don’t throw it at all and let the teams choose when to pit for wet tires. As it stands, NASCAR didn’t make it mandatory to stop, meaning that Austin Cindric and Chris Buescher chose to stay out.
The Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez is well-known for being bumpy due to shifting soils. In the rain, that made me think that you could have seen a lot of wheel-hopping or puddling. The puddling didn’t come to pass, but saw Kyle Busch wipe out under braking.
Busch indicated afterward that he tried to brake for turn 1, and his car just didn’t want to stop. He described it as like being on ice. He eventually chose to spin it out and took out a number of drivers rather than drive headlong into them.
Racing in Mexico City on Sunday (June 15) was fairly competitive. Prime Video did a decent job of bringing that action to viewers. While Shane van Gisbergen more or less stunk up the show while feeling “rubbish,” there was plenty of action to be had.
That said, it became significantly harder to move up once the track dried out. Take Ty Gibbs for example. He was realistically van Gisbergen’s biggest rival on Sunday and seemed to have equal pace. Then, Gibbs got burned by the final caution of the race for Carson Hocevar’s car spin before he could make his final stop.
Gibbs ended up just outside of the top 10 for the restart with 32 laps to catch van Gisbergen. He ended up 40 seconds behind him at the finish, having gotten up to ninth, then dropped back to 11th.
The conditions on Sunday made it fairly difficult for the broadcast to show what the tire wear was truly like on the slick tires. It was unclear whether certain drivers were harder on their tires and losing pace. What was clear was that once you got 15 laps into a run, no one could run with van Gisbergen. The man was a second a lap faster than anybody else.
The stark difference in pace between van Gisbergen and the entire rest of the field threw everyone for a loop. The broadcast knew van Gisbergen was good on a road course. He’d already won the first Cup race on the streets in Chicago and won three NASCAR Xfinity Series road races. The announcers revealed that van Gisbergen had recently hit up Max Verstappen for advice on the place (while the circuit is slightly different, Verstappen has five wins there). You got to love the Red Bull synergy.
There were a couple of technical issues here. For example, the broadcast showed van Gisbergen’s in-car cameras/footwork and failed to match it to the actual race footage being shown. That hadn’t been an issue earlier in the race, so I’m not sure what happened there.
NASCAR had a podium ceremony in Mexico City, but we didn’t really see it. This has been a thing every time NASCAR has done it. Have the ceremony, then have the broadcast ignore it. I don’t get it. It’s not like you have to pay rights fees to air a national anthem.
Post-race coverage was pretty typical compared to what we’ve seen over the past month. We got plenty of analysis and burnout ratings, but not as many interviews as I would have liked, given that there was nearly an hour of post-race coverage.
There was an interesting statement from Letarte about how he was upset about Kyle Larson coming back out after getting wrapped up in Busch’s wreck to get the Xfinity Fastest Lap. I have no problem with what Larson and Hendrick Motorsports did, regardless of the fact that he was 42 laps down. It’s no different than what we saw over the past few years in Formula 1 with teams making late pit stops to try to get the extra point.
Looking back, the situation that presented itself Sunday (and to a lesser extent, Saturday) made it impossible to truly quantify how good van Gisbergen was going into the race. You knew he was going to be good, but this good? Even with the expanded schedule this past weekend, there’s still not enough track time to truly show who is the best prior to the race.
I enjoyed the race and was thankful for the action that we got later in the race because if the broadcast focused solely on van Gisbergen when he was running off and hiding, it would have been pretty boring. That said, I expected more out of the trip to Mexico City.
That’s all for this week. Next weekend is another busy one. NASCAR has a tripleheader at Pocono Raceway, where a big crowd is expected. The NTT IndyCar Series will be at Road America, while IMSA is at Watkins Glen International for the Sahlen’s Six Hours at the Glen. Finally, the ARCA Menards Series visits its smallest track, Elko Speedway. TV listings can be found here.
We’ll have a recap of Amazon Prime Video’s coverage of The Great American Gateway 400 from Pocono in next week’s edition of Couch Potato Tuesday here at Frontstretch. For the Critic’s Annex, we’ll cover The Chilango 150 for the Xfinity Series.
If you would like to contact Amazon Prime Video about the race, go to the link for Sunday night’s race, click on the “Send us feedback” link at the bottom of the page and leave your feedback there. To contact either FOX Sports or NBC Sports, click on either of the links below.
As always, if you choose to contact a network by email, do so in a courteous manner. Network representatives are far more likely to respond to emails that ask questions politely rather than emails full of rants and vitriol.
Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the Frontstretch email newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the Frontstretch Sports Car racing editor.
Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.
I will never understand why Nascar puts a ‘foot cam’ in a car where the driver does the typical left foot braking. Nothing special here. I used to marvel and Ricky Rudd using left foot clutch and heel-and-toe in the accelerator and brake. THAT is worth a camera Now that the clutch is basically only for pit stops, it makes a moot point for the camera.
Nascar trying to follow F1.. podium, paddock, P1 instead of first, multi car teams and the aero technology. Why don’t you just be yourself and stand out as stock car racing has in the past.
Because money.
Agreed it was odd Amazon wasn’t syncing the foot cam late in the race. Still, it was quite interesting seeing SVG utilizing the clutch to help pivot the car, as well as maintain more control of traction. I thought Earnhardt and Letarte’s discussion about this was interesting as well. I have to suspect that was part of why SVG was able to yard the field on longer runs…he was controlling wheel spin better, allowing him to preserve his tires.
I don’t fault Larson and his team for grabbing the fastest lap, though I think NASCAR needs to tweak that rule. When F1 was awarding a point for it, the rule was the car must place in the top ten. But, their rule was flawed as well, as if the fastest lap was recorded by a car which didn’t finish in the top ten, no point was awarded at all. NASCAR should award the point to the fastest lap amongst the top 20 finishers, even if a car outside the top 20 recorded a faster lap. This would eliminate any gaming of the system.
I don’t tend to watch pre or post race, as frankly, they’re generally boring, no matter the sport. But I felt Amazon again did a great job with the race itself. There was so much happening up and down the field, and they made a strong effort to cover it all. The contrast between Amazon’s Sunday coverage, and CW’s Saturday coverage was stark. CW looked and sounded like a DIY YouTube stream compared to Amazon’s product. CW can’t even get their commentator audio synced, and this has been an issue all season. I’d be embarrassed to attach my name to it.
Other posters have pointed out the broadcast was showing old video of SVG’s footwork. I forgot this, because I’m old and busted. Carry on.
We hear what we want to hear and ignore the rest!
Or in my case, I’m just not very bright.
Why is there controversy over Larson getting the fastest lap? I’m impressed he did it with a damaged car. Was there parts missing so his car was lighter? Did he shortcut a part of the course and NASCAR missed it?
And for the record, I’d like to see them go back to giving a point for leading the most laps.
Agreed, I liked the most laps bonus, and even the halfway bonus back in the day.
As for Larson, I was impressed with he and his team’s effort as well. They did exactly what they should have done, given the circumstances. My concern is gaming the system. The cut line often comes down to the wire. As we saw with the gamesmanship last year of the Chastain/Dillon blocking C. Bell from overtaking Byron in points in the playoffs, teams are not above trying to cheat the system.
Hypothetical example: Let’s say Ty Gibbs is in a close battle with Tyler Reddick to make the playoffs, or move to the next round. Reddick has the fastest lap. Christopher Bell has a damaged car, has nothing to gain in the playoffs, and the track is in a condition where new tires may mean a fastest lap. Would the team try to patch Bell’s car together, and see if he could take the fastest lap from Reddick? I bet they would. Conversely, if Gibbs had the fastest lap, would they? I bet not. And that’s not an indictment of JGR, that’s just the team playing the hand they’ve been dealt.
F1 saw this sort of silliness play out often, before they scrapped the bonus point this year. A car out of contention would pit late, run what amounted to a qualifying lap, taking a point away from a rival team. I think NASCAR could keep the bonus but again, I’d like to see it go to a car that’s competitive, not a car that’s only running to get that point.
Sounds like you actually got to watch the Xfinity race. I tried 3 different channels, sites where I had watched races before, and found…a ‘corner camera’ that focused on only 1 corner, or a ‘driver cam’ that was another one driver option. Never did find the race.
Yeah, their coverage was terrible, but it was a good race. Shame the CW has botched their contract so badly. I’m at least lucky my local CW does show the races, though again, it’s a bit of a romper room presentation.
If I recall correctly, they said that the SVG foot-cam was from Chicago in 2023 because SVG no longer allows foot-cam in his car so that others can’t study his technique.
I caught the SVG does not allow us to place a camera in the footwell anymore.
My take on him, he is very good at learning a new track, way better than nearly all of the field. He has really skunked them when it’s a new track for everybody. I don’t count him out on other road courses, but his advantage is less when the others have a notebook. He also drives with a real respect for the car. I bet a lot of that is just how the Supercars series is.
It’s not just about SGV’s ability to quickly learn the track, it’s also about SGV’s tyre management during the race. That’s what really separates him from other drivers, as it did in Supercars in Australia. And this is why he often pulls away from the other drivers at the end of a road course race.
The reason they didn’t sync up SGV’s footwork with the track vision is because the foot cam was from an earlier race. No cameras were recording SGV’s footwork in this race.
They explained that SVG didn’t allow them to show his footwork anymore. Didn’t want to give away any ‘secrets’ that give him an advantage. why they bother with a foot cam that just show the typical left foot braking, especially since that clutch pedal is virtually unused except for pit stops.