Mexico City — The inaugural NASCAR Cup Series race held beyond U.S. borders encountered initial difficulties on Friday as multiple teams had not reached Mexico City due to travel complications originating from North Carolina.
A charter flight bound for Mexico City was halted on Thursday due to an engine problem, causing teams to urgently seek alternate travel options to reach their destination. Many opted to drive to Atlanta to secure seats on regular commercial flights instead.
However, upon the opening of the track on Friday, numerous people were absent from Autodromo Hermanos Rodríguez. Among those missing was Trackhouse Racing.
Daniel Suarez
He arrived on Tuesday accompanied by some support staff and thus remained unaffected. However, the communication director of the Cup team was called upon to assist in unloading the Trackhouse vehicles from the truck since no crew members were accessible.
The trucks originated from the previous Sunday’s race in Michigan and reached the Mexico City circuit on Thursday.
NASCAR mentioned that only “a select few” teams were not present at the venue on Friday morning. However, it appears that most of these absent teams belong to the Xfinity Series due to changes in the weekend scheduling.
“NASCAR announced an adjustment to the on-track schedule for this weekend’s events in Mexico City’s Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez, due to two airplane problems that caused several racing teams to be grounded in Charlotte, N.C., on Thursday,” according to a statement from NASCAR.
NASCAR rescheduled Friday’s initially planned Cup Series practice for a later time slot during the day. Additionally, they moved all Xfinity Series practice sessions from Friday to Saturday instead. Furthermore, the opening race of the doubleheader for the NASCAR Mexico Series has been advanced to an earlier start time on Friday as previously set.
The Xfinity Series will have reduced practice time, featuring only a single 50-minute session on Saturday morning, directly preceding the qualifying round. Other minor changes apply too; however, Cup teams won’t see their practice time affected.
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