Formula 1 has confirmed a weekend crowd of 395,902 for the 2022 Mexico City Grand Prix – a new record for the best-attended Mexican race weekend in F1 history.
The 2022 Mexico City Grand Prix had a weekend attendance of almost 400,000. In the best-attended Mexican race weekend in F1 history, 395,902 fans packed into Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez over the three days of the weekend.
Home favourite Sergio Perez delivered another podium finish in front of his adoring fans, while Red Bull team-mate Max Verstappen claimed his 14th win of the 2022 season. In doing so, Verstappen set a new record for most Grand Prix victories in a single season.
Ahead of the race weekend, Formula 1 confirmed that a new contract had been signed with race organisers and the local government, keeping the Mexico City Grand Prix on the calendar until at least 2025.
Mexico City Grand Prix weekend attendance figures
Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez has drawn in a weekend crowd of over 330,000 every time a Grand Prix has been held here since the track returned to the calendar in 2015. This is Mexico’s third stint on the calendar. The race actually became a victim of its own success during its first stint on the schedule. By 1970, race organisers were unable to control the crowd numbers – which began to exceed 200,000 on race day alone.
The event returned 16 years later for a second stint, but the seven Mexican Grands Prix held between 1986 and 1992 failed to attract the same level of interest. In this period, the 1992 race was the best-attended event, with a relatively low 100,000 in attendance.
Having a home driver on the grid certainly helps boost attendance figures in Mexico. Pedro Rodriguez – Mexico’s most successful Formula 1 driver until recently – was a big draw to the event throughout the 1960s. There were no Mexicans on the grid during F1’s return to Mexico City between 1986 and 1992, which is a contributing factor to the lower attendances in this period.
When F1 returned in 2015, Sergio Perez was on the grid with the midfield Force India team. His move to frontrunning team Red Bull in 2021 has generated even more local interest, with the 2021 race becoming the best-attended of the event’s comeback stint. 371,000 attended last year, with 95% of fans having carried their tickets forward from the cancelled 2020 event. In 2021, Perez became the first Mexican driver to finish on the podium at their home race. The attendance figure subsequently soared to almost 400,000 in 2022.
F1 attendance figures will surpass 5 million in 2022
From the 20 races held so far in the 2022 season, 15 have confirmed their weekend attendance figures. The total weekend attendances from those 15 races is 4.8 million. The United States Grand Prix is the best-attended race weekend of the year, with 440,000 fans attending over the three days of Circuit of The America’s 10th F1 weekend. The Australian Grand Prix (419,000) and the British Grand Prix (401,000) also had weekend crowds which exceeded 400,000.
Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Imola, Monaco and Azerbaijan are the five events yet to declare their 2022 attendance figures. Bahrain had a record-breaking race day crowd, while Azerbaijan reported a ‘record’ number with an increase in number of visitors from abroad.
With the two remaining races – in Sao Paulo and Abu Dhabi – added, plus the unreleased attendance figures for previous races, attendance figures in 2022 will certainly exceed five million and could even stretch over six million.
Last year, Formula 1 recorded a total attendance of 2.69 million in a season where attendance figures were still impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. In 2019, the last season before the pandemic began, attendances totalled 4.16 million. The 2022 figure will likely exceed that by over a million.
