The NASCAR Cup Series will make history in 2025 when the sport hosts its international points-paying race in Mexico City — and IndyCar’s Pato O’Ward is already looking for a chance to race in his home country.

McLaren CEO Zak Brown supports his driver’s aims, though he’s advised O’Ward to hold out on making his NASCAR debut until 2026, when the Mexico City event will hopefully not conflict with an IndyCar race.

Zak Brown supports O’Ward’s Mexico NASCAR aims

In the United States, IndyCar and NASCAR are both primarily regional series, with the open-wheel series making one annual foray into Toronto for an international event. But as both sports grow, they’ve both turned their attention to the next country to conquer: Mexico.

Mexico City’s Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez has been hungry to expand its slate of annual racing events beyond FIA-sanctioned series like Formula 1 and Formula E. The arrival of Pato O’Ward in IndyCar resulted in some impressive growth in Mexican fanbases — and many assumed IndyCar would be able to easily negotiate a race deal.

That didn’t happen. Instead, the NASCAR Cup Series negotiated an event for 2025.

IndyCar’s O’Ward feels that the series missed out on its opportunity to monopolize the Mexico City market. Now, if IndyCar wants to compete in Mexico, it’ll have to find a different track.

But if IndyCar won’t go to Mexico City, then O’Ward is determined to negotiate a deal with NASCAR to make his debut there instead.

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Unfortunately, if O’Ward wants to race in Mexico, he’ll have to wait until 2026. When the Cup Series debuts at the international venue in 2025, IndyCar will be racing at Gateway.

“I would love to [race NASCAR in Mexico],” O’Ward told RACER.

“I’m really bummed. I wish we could have done it as soon as the first time, which is next year, but it’s when we go to Gateway, and obviously my priorities lie in IndyCar, but I would love to do the next one. That’s the race I would do absolutely.

“I don’t really have interest doing another race. I want to do that one, and I think it’d be cool.”

He also noted that he thinks it would be excellent if he could race alongside Daniel Suarez, the Mexican racer who competes in the NASCAR Cup Series.

Further, Zak Brown confirmed to RACER in Monza that he would fully support O’Ward’s NASCAR bid; after all, there are plenty of inroads for the Mexican racer.

First and foremost, Arrow McLaren is a Chevrolet-powered team. With Chevy also racing in NASCAR, it wouldn’t require any complex negotiations with different manufacturers needing to sign off on O’Ward’s outing.

On top of that, Arrow McLaren already forged a strong relationship with NASCAR’s Hendrick Motorsports thanks to Kyle Larson’s attempt to race at both the Indianapolis 500 and the Coca-Cola 600 this season.

But O’Ward doesn’t want to rely solely on Zak Brown; he told RACER that he feels “I have enough authority where I can make it happen myself.”

Thankfully, he already has Brown’s approval. Now all he needs is IndyCar to develop a schedule that would allow him to race in NASCAR in 2026.

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