Speed with an Offering

This year the Mexico City Grand Prix runs October 30 to November 1, right in Day of the Dead season. Two traditions share the calendar.

The festival of the dead has worldwide recognition: UNESCO inscribed “Indigenous festivities dedicated to the dead” on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2008. The celebration coincides with the close of the maize agricultural cycle and welcomes the departed with offerings, flowers, candles and altars.

The overlap with motorsport goes back a long way. The first Formula 1 Grand Prix at the Magdalena Mixhuca circuit was run in 1962, on Day of the Dead dates, as El País recalls.

Today México GP proposes six ways to live both festivals. At the Autódromo, fans arrive painted as calaveras or catrinas, and there is a Day of the Dead altar in the Blue Zone. Across the city, the monumental offerings at the Zócalo, Tlatelolco, Ciudad Universitaria, Xochimilco and Parque Tezozómoc are free to visit.

The Great Day of the Dead Parade, held since 2016, runs along Reforma and through the Historic Center. In Chapultepec Park, from October 30 to November 1, 2:00–10:00 p.m., the free festival “El Sendero del Cempasúchil” (The Marigold Path) takes place. And about 40 kilometers from downtown, San Andrés Mixquic keeps one of the country’s most traditional celebrations.