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Preparation in high gear for Mexican F1 race

Immerse yourself in the market. Understand the fan base.

Rodrigo Sanchez, marketing director for the Formula One Gran Premio de Mexico, said those are among the keys to staging a successful F1 event. And Sanchez and his colleagues in Mexico City are working to do just that, preparing for Mexico’s return to the F1 calendar this fall after a 23-year hiatus.

SANCHEZ
“We have all the tools in place to have a successful event,” Sanchez said. “[Mexico has] had a couple drivers in the series for a few years now, which has helped to bring a lot of momentum, and the people are excited about the sport.”

For the Mexico City group, their work began in large part 10 months ago, when Mexico-based entertainment company CIE signed a five-year deal with Formula One Management to host a race at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez. CIE is paying an estimated $30 million annually to Formula One Management for rights to host the race.

But one of the immediate needs upon securing the race was work to improve the facility that would host the event. Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez is more than 50 years old and, outside of a NASCAR Toyota Series event last June, its global race calendar has been relatively limited in recent years. F1 was last at the track in 1992, CART competed there in 2007, and NASCAR had a Nationwide Series event on-site in 2008.

German architect Hermann Tilke and his company were retained to upgrade the track’s technological capabilities and to improve its safety features, among other enhancements. Work on the project — an effort Sanchez said will cost $200 million — is expected to continue through the summer, leading up to race day on Nov. 1.

Work on improvements at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez will continue through the year.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
The project is being paid for by a combination of CIE and public funding. And based on ticket sales, the public’s interest in the race is high: Tickets for the event, which will accommodate 120,000 seated spectators along with more than 30,000 general admission ticket holders, went on sale in March and sold out in five minutes, Sanchez said.

Early hospitality sales have been strong as well. Charlotte-based QuintEvents is selling packages priced from more than $2,500 to $4,000 per person for Friday through Sunday, with space available for about 3,500 guests. Those packages supplement the prime Formula One Paddock Club hospitality offerings, which cost $4,500 and above, with 5,000 spaces available.

“Sales for Mexico City are off to a very fast start,” said QuintEvents CEO Brian Learst, whose company also sells hospitality for the F1 race in Austin, Texas; Paddock Club packages worldwide; and MotoGP’s equivalent of the Paddock Club, the MotoGP VIP Village. “We have already sold over 300 packages in the first week [sales began May 4], and the most exciting part is they are to people around the world.”

That global interest could increase with additional promotional efforts planned for the race. Those plans include a demo run in Mexico City during the summer, events related to the grand reopening of the track, and promotions at a minimum of seven other F1 races throughout the year.

Sergio Perez of Mexico drives for Force India in the Formula One series.
Photo by: GETTY IMAGES
After hosting a culinary demonstration ahead of the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona earlier this month, promoters are planning to produce additional driver endorsements for the Mexico race on-site at the Monaco Grand Prix this weekend. Drivers Sergio Perez (Force India team) and Esteban Gutiérrez (Ferrari team reserve driver), both from Mexico, are expected to play featured roles in the activation plans of the organizers.

Sanchez was the marketing manager for the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, from April 2012 until November, when he took the job in Mexico City, so he saw the creation and development of F1 in central Texas through COTA’s race, which debuted in 2012. He said familiarity of F1 among Mexican race fans is higher than what he saw among fans in Texas when developing that race, but the challenge remains to turn that F1 familiarity in Mexico into awareness of and interest in Mexico now hosting a race — including among local sponsoring companies.

The pursuit of local sponsors is ongoing, Sanchez said. Related to that is determining what the footprint of the renovated track in Mexico City will be and what signage opportunities will be available for any such sponsors.

“It’s a work-in-progress kind of thing,” he said.

The majority of the racetrack signage will go to F1’s global partners, such as Emirates, DHL, Pirelli and UBS.

Tim Bampton, senior vice president of marketing communications for Just Marketing International, said interest among those global companies in F1 coming to Mexico is high. JMI handles F1 work for companies that include Epson, Qualcomm and UBS, all of which are expected to have activations in and around the Mexico event.

“We are going to be very busy in Mexico,” Bampton said. “We’ve got programs for most, if not all, of our Formula One clients.”

HJ Mai is assistant managing editor of SportsBusiness Daily Global.

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