Penske Entertainment President & CEO Mark Miles “was steadfast in his assertion” that it was the “complications of next summer’s FIFA men’s World Cup — and that alone — that prevented IndyCar from racing at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez,” the permanent road course in Mexico City, according to Nathan Brown of the INDIANAPOLIS STAR. Miles said, “We were quite close on getting it done (for 2026). The World Cup and its effect on the economy and the business environment there for the summer next year really caused us to be more cautious.” He added, “We’re going to stay on it. I’ll be in Mexico in the next month, and we’ll be dealing with the folks at OCESA and CIE (the track promoters) to look for the opportunity. We want to be back there as soon as we can.” As Miles “hinted at multiple times” yesterday, Penske Entertainment has not yet “decided the way in which it will continue to pursue a future race in Mexico City — meaning either with or without a promoter on the ground serving as a middleman between Penske Entertainment and the track operators of Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez” (INDIANAPOLIS STAR, 9/16).
20/20 VISION: IndyCar and Penske Entertainment officials said that they “saw the prospect of elevating two races” — Laguna Seca as its future season finale, and Nashville Superspeedway in the prime TV window immediately following an eight-figure FIFA World Cup final audience — “as reason enough” to make its seventh change to the final race of the year since 2019. Brown in a separate piece wrote therein “lies the reason” the third-most-watched race of 2025, with an average audience of 1.142 million viewers, will “vacate its spot as the potential championship decider and slide into the one-time role with a monster lead-in audience” and hand the finale to Laguna Seca, a race that hasn’t topped 750,000 in average audience since it rejoined the calendar in 2019. The shakeup “seemed to leave many in the paddock as confused and curious as any development — appearing in the outset as a change for change’s sake and a major step back in the quality and excitement for IndyCar’s finale.” The move is “believed to have been an end product of a series of shifts in the potential landscape of the series’ prospective 2026 calendar.” Miles said that Penske Entertainment has “a multi-year plan” for Laguna Seca to “remain the finale beyond 2026″ (INDIANAPOLIS STAR, 9/16).
FUTURE LOOKING BRIGHT: Brown in another separate piece wrote getting Phoenix back — in a shared weekend with NASCAR’s Cup and Xfinity series, no less — “should make for a high-interest second race of the year.” He wrote a shared weekend with NASCAR on an oval “is truly groundbreaking,” though it would seem it “took the needling from Fox,” which will broadcast both the IndyCar and Cup races that weekend, in order to “bridge that gap between two series that see each other as competition — and the one in NASCAR who owns the track.” He added if the series and its partners “can really tinker with the package” over the offseason, there is “every reason to think IndyCar might hold the best racing of the weekend at the track.” And “doing so in front of a much larger in-person crowd than they’d otherwise get if they were the only show in town will only help contribute to exposing itself to a wider audience.” If this goes well, perhaps there will be “more avenues to try shared weekends like this in the future” (INDIANAPOLIS STAR, 9/16).
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.sportsbusinessjournal.com ’
