Mexican GP organisers consider crowd capacity increase for 2016

Last year’s hugely successful event attracted 336,174 fans, second only to Silverstone’s British Grand Prix.

Following its return to the Formula 1 calendar after a 23-year absence, the President and CEO of live event promotions giant CIE, Alejandro Soberon, has pledged an “even better experience” in 2016.

“We were very happy with the way it went last year, but there are always areas for improvement,” he told Motorsport.com.

“We have been on sale now for three weeks, and we’re at 80, 81 per cent of the objective for this year already. So we’re fine, and there’s been a lot of interest from foreigners to come – that has increased from last year’s event.

“We’re pretty optimistic about this year’s race. We’re even considering increasing the capacity a little bit over last year.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that it’s going to be another solid sell-out.”

Huge economic benefits

Soberon pointed to the recent economic impact report that stated the event contributed $232.8 million to the Mexican economy – as well as $277.8 million of media global exposure.

“Last year was challenging, but we were very proud that Mexico was able to surprise the world,” he stated.

“The profile of the event has created a lot of awareness, and we truly believe that the concept of the race in Mexico was a winner – such as integrating the stadium into the fan experience. That worked out very well.

“We have a team that is working very hard to give fans an even better experience this year. We’re happy, but we’re busy.”