The city renowned for its world class museums and vibrant colonial architecture is going to roar to life with our flavour of engines and elbows out racing. Its Spanish meets British in Latin America. You can’t get more multicultural than that!

The unique attributes of the circuit aren’t just limited to the layout of the race track, a 1.2 kilometre long main straight is matched by the altitude and lack of air density means the cars aren’t pushing through as many molecules of air in a straight line. The alternate side of not pushing through as thick air is that the engine is also receiving less oxygen.

Weather forecasts at the moment are not looking positive beyond 4.30pm. A heavy shower is supposed to be building in the area late afternoon on Wednesday that will be hanging around throughout Thursday. If the race is scheduled for this time period we should expect it to be more than just a passing shower. With race timing and final weather still yet to be announced this is an element that does need to be considered.

At 175 kilometres this is our shortest Sprint race of the year. Average lap times for the race should be approximately 92 seconds with a fuel burn around 3 litres per lap. With no Safety Car we’re on track for about 1 hour and 10 minutes or so.

However, the tire bundles that are placed at a majority of the corners bring into play an element of risk. Contact with the bundles in a racing pack is very likely to trigger a Safety Car, but the drivers are the best of the best and “risk management v pace” is always at the forefront of a racing driver’s mind. 

Strategy and fuel weight will be an important element to the race. A tank of fuel is capable of running just over 44 of the 45 laps, however, there is still the requirement to complete two compulsory pit stops. Tire degradation and clear air will be the deciding factors over fuel drop. Finding a hole in the traffic to pit into will be the difference in maximising average race pace versus making a strategy blunder.

No one would have been surprised at the start of the year to see Lobs Esports P1/2 in the championship, but Gilliam leading the championship was not the order we expected to see. Filsell closed the margin down at Spa, but expect the enduro’s to still be the deciding factor between these guys for now. The fact the team has Luke Rosella sitting in 3rd place currently would also surprise most people, but the reality is Luke is capable of that speed and we haven’t seen the best of him until this year. The next level for Rosella is locking himself into these sorts of results long term.

Additionally Eclipse Simsports have finally managed to crack the pace in a supercar. The key here is that we are seeing strong results from the majority of their cars. Ryan O’ Sullivan might not have been the flashiest of drivers so far, but he has put the results consistently together to be 4th place in the championship. When his teammates have encountered issues he has been right there to clean up and that’s been the deciding factor.

Emily Jones’ strong result was hampered by contact with teammate Jake Burton at Spa, but to find herself currently atop the Trans Tasman Racing pile speaks of her ability to just quietly put race results together. You’re never going to stand there and say she has the elbows out or there’s dive bombs from a mile back, but you also will never find her listed amongst the retirements.

Don’t forget this is the final race before the new mid year TrueForce Endurance Cup gets underway and most of the co-driver selections are yet to break cover. Lobs Esports are going to have to look further afield to fill all of their driver combinations as previous co-drivers Thomas McMillan and Brad Newman now have full time drives. Eclipse will also need to go searching to support their list of drivers with new additions to the team in Ryan O’Sullivan, Matthew Bowler and Hayden Veld.

This could be a fairly hefty shakeup to the section of the calendar worth the largest amount of points per race on offer. Last year Andre Youssif was able to put a host of points together with clinical finishes on his way to automatic qualification for this year’s series. Who has managed to find that right driver pairing and who will fail to score points is probably going to be a big consideration.

We’ll see you all Wednesday night from 7.45pm AEST as the altitude gets us elevated for a cracking Logitech G V8 Pro Invitational from Mexico City!