WEST ALLIS, Wis. — The line for Pato O’Ward at every IndyCar autograph session snakes around corners, blocks the entrances for other drivers and pretty much shames his rivals.
When his Arrow McLaren Racing team tries to debrief at the track, fans of the 25-year-old Mexican gather outside the team transporter and are so raucous that teammate Alexander Rossi said the meetings have to be halted.
So when NASCAR announced this week that it would race in Mexico City in 2025, IndyCar drivers were stunned that another American series beat them to a fertile market starving to see their most popular driver.
“I think that’s a massive miss,” six-time IndyCar champion Scott Dixon said. “I don’t know how that happens.”
Neither does O’Ward, a Monterrey native who in five full IndyCar seasons has built a following in Mexico probably second only to Formula 1 driver Sergio Pérez. And yet it is NASCAR — with Mexican driver Daniel Suarez — who will be racing next season at Autodromo Hermanos Rodríguez.
O’Ward is the reserve F1 driver for McLaren and needs security to navigate track property. It’s not that he’s in danger; it’s just that his 2022 trip into the stadium bowl grandstands with a GoPro camera showed how quickly the petite driver can be mobbed by adoring fans.
But he wants to race in front of them and given NASCAR’s new multiyear deal in Mexico City, O’Ward isn’t sure it will happen.
“They beat us to the cake,” O’Ward said. “I strongly believe that we’re not only late, but I strongly believe that there isn’t more room in Mexico City. Like, not only did they beat us there, but now that is not an option for IndyCar. You need to understand that these people save up their money to go to these events.”
His fellow competitors felt for O’Ward, who has opened his own wallet with ticket promotions to get his fans to IndyCar races.
IndyCar points leader Álex Palou smacked his forehead in exaggerated shock as to how IndyCar did not get the race that went to NASCAR, which next June will hold a points-paying event outside the United States for the first time in modern history.
“It’s like, everybody is overtaking us, like left, right, left, right,” Palou said. “One-hundred percent, we should have been (in Mexico City). It doesn’t make much sense for me. But for Pato, he’s been growing, so I think we’re like five years too late, and now NASCAR overtakes us.”
O’Ward thinks IndyCar’s only shot to race in Mexico now is finding an entirely…
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