Organisers of the Mexican Grand Prix are confident the race will go ahead as planned on October 29th after revealing no damage was sustained to the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez in the wake of the country’s terrible earthquake on Tuesday.
Inspections of the venue have been completed in the wake of the 7.1 magnitude tremor, which struck the central part of Mexico the hardest and has killed over 200 people as a result.
However, Director of Marketing Rodrigo Sanchez revealed the renovation work completed to welcome back F1 in 2015 actually helped in this situation and that so far nothing has caused reason for concern.
“I don’t think so. If things stay the same, we’ll just keep doing what we’re doing, keep helping,” he said, when asked if the race was at risk. “The track is fine and we just need to refocus and get the show done.
“It’s a relatively new circuit. In Mexico, all the new structures are built with that purpose because the chances [of an earthquake] are very high. It’s been inspected twice already, from the track surface and also the buildings, and it’s OK. So we’ll continue doing the assessments as we go but so far there’s really no concern, we’ll have a race.”
Local hero Sergio Perez has already helped the best way he can by donating £125,000 to the disaster relief fund and Sanchez continued by claiming the same atmosphere and passion that has become a hallmark of the race in Mexico City will also help bring the country back together as they recover from the earthquake.
“The Mexican people, in times like this, we bring ourselves together and we know how to move on,” he said. “It’s important to show our unity, not only amongst ourselves but to the world. So in that aspect, I think we’re fine.
“Its times [like this] where you get to sit down and see what all of us are capable of doing. We need to remain together in the bad and the good, not only in the bad. That’s a powerful message and something we need to show and I think Mexicans are a good example of that, their pride and their energy.
“The same pride you usually see in the grandstands we are seeing in the devastation zones right now, everyone is not even sleeping, people are staying overnight just to get people out of buildings.”
