The McLaren Mastercard Formula 1 Team heads to Mexico City as the 2026 Formula 1 season enters its final phase.

With five races remaining and McLaren Mastercard and Red Bull level on points, the battle for third place in the Constructors' Championship is set to run to the end of the season. Every point will be increasingly important as the team focuses on maximising each opportunity and continuing to build through the closing rounds of a highly competitive campaign.

The Mexico City Grand Prix forms the middle round of the Americas triple-header, following Austin and preceding São Paulo. This demanding sequence presents a significant test for every team, with little time between events to review and adapt to the varying circuit conditions and prepare the cars for another intense race weekend.

At 2,238 metres above sea level, the Autodromo Hermanos Rodríguez presents one of the most distinctive technical challenges of the year. The thinner air provides less cooling even when ambient temperatures are not especially high, requiring larger brake ducts and bodywork openings to keep the brakes and power unit within their operating windows. It also reduces aerodynamic load by around 20 per cent compared with sea level, meaning that even with a high-downforce set-up, the car produces less downforce than it would at Monza and offers the drivers significantly less grip.

The circuit combines fast and slow sections with bumps and kerbs, but the team's approach to setting up the MCL40 will remain unchanged. The team will begin Free Practice 1 with its best baseline set-up, developed through simulation and work in Woking, before refining it throughout the practice sessions. The aim is to have a competitive car by the end of FP3 that performs optimally in both low and high-speed sections.

On top of track conditions, the passionate Mexican crowd creates an unmistakable unique atmosphere around the circuit, especially through the Foro Sol aspect heading into the final corners of the current layout.

In the first year of Formula 1's new era and regulations, the team remains committed to learning, developing and extracting the maximum from the MCL40 at every opportunity. After the successful introduction of changes to the front and rear corners of the MCL40 in Austin, the car will remain essentially unchanged going into this weekend's race. This will therefore only see a small selection of parts delivered to track in Mexico City through the team's development pathway with further developments in the pipeline for the remaining rounds of the 2026 season, starting from the race in São Paulo.

The aim for the McLaren team in Mexico City is to deliver a strong, clean weekend and build momentum for the final races as it pushes to finish as high as possible in both the Drivers' and Constructors' Championships. Realistically, the aim is third place in the Constructors' Championship: a five-race mini-championship against Red Bull gets underway in Mexico City, with the two teams currently level on points.

Following the announcement of his McLaren Hypercar Team seat earlier this month, Leonardo Fornaroli will return to the MCL40 for Free Practice 1 at the Mexico City Grand Prix in place of Lando Norris and the São Paulo Grand Prix in place of Oscar Piastri. These sessions follow the Italian driver's successful FP1 sessions in Barcelona-Catalunya and Hungary, completing the team's final two mandatory rookie sessions.

Leonardo Fornaroli: "I am excited to be getting back into the MCL40 for the upcoming Free Practice 1 sessions in both Mexico City and São Paulo. They're new circuits for me, which is good challenge. Mexico presents new conditions for me to drive in with the altitude and low grip, with Brazil looking fun with the iconic features of the track. It is always a pleasure to work alongside the team at race weekends, so thank you to them for trusting me with further FP1 sessions.

"Our preparations have been extensive. Alongside dedicated simulator work, I've done some Testing of Previous Cars running in last year's double World Championship-winning car, which was an incredible experience. That mileage provided good preparation for what lies ahead. My focus will be on helping the team set up Lando and Oscar's cars and gathering a good bank of data. I am ready and eager to get out on circuit for both FP1 sessions."

McLaren Racing Heritage - Mexico

4 wins, 4 Poles, 11 podiums, 2 Fastest Laps

• Most recent win: 2025, Lando Norris in the MCL39

• Special race: 1968, Bruce McLaren's second place finish in the M7A

• Standout race: 1991, Ayrton Senna's crash in the MP4/6

The MP4/6 is one of McLaren's all-time greats: the only V12 to win a World Championship, the last manual car to win a World Championship, and quite simply the nicest-sounding machine to ever hit a race track. The Mexican Grand Prix wasn't its finest hour, but Ayrton Senna's grit and determination to secure a podium is something worth talking about 35 years later.

F1 went to the Autodromo Hermanos Rodríguez for Round Six of the 1991 World Championship, part of a North American double-header with the Canadian Grand Prix in Montréal. Though in the rather more sedate times of the early 1990s and its 16-race calendar, there was a week's gap between the two events. Senna therefore went home to Brazil, and arrived in Mexico somewhat the worse for wear, with a row of stitches in his scalp, having been hospitalised after a jet ski accident. Physio Josef Leberer, and F1 CMO Professor Sid Watkins modified the internal padding in Senna's helmet to take some of the pressure off the wound.

Neil Oatley (who was Chief Designer at the time): "We arrived in Mexico with a strong lead in both the Drivers' and Constructors' Championship, after taking wins in the first four races. The mood in the camp was buoyant, hoping to continue the run of successes."

Watching the onboards from the 1991 race, the Autodromo Hermanos Rodríguez looks much the same as it does now, bumps included. The primary difference is the absence of the Foro Sol stadium and in its place, the fearsome 300 km per hour Peraltada corner. Senna's weekend got off to the worst sort of start, when he had a huge crash in Friday Qualifying. The session had already been Red Flagged once, with Bertrand Gachot spearing into the tyre barriers, and once it got going again, Senna did the same.

With one hand off the wheel to change gear, he hit a bump in the Peraltada, the unbalanced car snapped around, flinging him backwards into the wall at high speed. The car bounced off and flipped over in the gravel trap, requiring Ayrton to crawl out from underneath. "Ayrton managed to extricate himself, thanks to the extra space afforded by the deep furrows, and calmy walked away from the car," remembers Neil. "He looked unharmed and was collected by the Medical Car to take him to the Medical Centre for examination."

Speaking about the atmosphere in the garage, Neil says, "At that time the pit garages did not have arrays of TV screens and we only had a small monitor, the initial 'lump in the throat' when he did not come past the pits was quickly dispersed when we could see he was walking clear of the car."

Cleared to resume the weekend, Senna was back in the cockpit on Saturday for the second Qualifying session, having had physio sessions long into the night with Leberer. The team's resilience shown through.

"The car was returned to the garage quickly for examination. The damage was limited to the left front suspension and front wing in the initial impact and bodywork and rear wing as the car gently rolled over. All in a days' work. The mechanics set to work with their normal enthusiasm, encouraged by the fact that the driver was fine after what could have been a very significant accident. The same car was rebuilt for running on Saturday morning and was used by Ayrton in the race on Sunday to take third position."

He started the race from third on the grid: best of the rest behind the dominant Williams-Renault.

Senna held third at the start, passing Pole-sitter Riccardo Patrese, but being passed in turn by Ferrari's Jean Alesi. Senna clinically took the place back on Lap 2, and held second place until a recovering Patrese blazed by on Lap 11. He continued to battle with Alesi, with the French-Sicilian getting by again on Lap 14, before he spun and dropped out of contention, leaving Senna unchallenged in third place. With no scheduled tyre changes, Senna held that position for the rest of the race. He finished 57 seconds behind the Williams pair, but the only other car on the lead lap. He left Mexico City with a comfortable 24-point lead in the Drivers' Championship, the same as it had been when he arrived.

Autodromo Hermanos Rodríguez

Race laps: 71
Circuit length: 4.304 km/2.674 miles
Total race distance: 305.354 km/189.738 miles
Number of corners: 17 (10 right, 7 left)
Pit loss: +23s
Safety Car L1 pit loss: +12
Energy management required: Low
Allocated tyre compounds: Hard: C3, Medium: C4 & • Soft: C5