When Formula 1® visits vibrant Mexico City around the end of October each year, Mexico City is celebrating one of its biggest national holidays – a tradition which the sport embraces.

One week before Formula 1® returned to Mexico for the 2015 Mexican Grand Prix, the James Bond film Spectre was released in cinemas. The beginning of the film features a colourful Day of the Dead parade taking place in Mexico City, complete with thousands of extras, a carnival atmosphere and giant floating skeletons.

The parade itself was entirely fictional – but the Day of the Dead tradition, or Día de los Muertos, was not. Until this point, the holiday was a largely intimate and family-orientated affair. The honouring of the deceased is a centuries-old tradition. At this time of year, friends and family gather to celebrate those who have passed away, memorialising them with candlelit alters with their favourite foods, books or musical instruments and often recounting humorous anecdotes.

One year later, inspired by the huge interest in the film and a desire from the local government to promote Mexican culture, a real Day of the Dead parade took place in the city for the first time. Parading from the striking Angel of Independence monument and winding through Paseo de la Reforma and Centro Historico, a quarter of a million people embraced the new tradition. It continues annually and draws well over a million spectators.

Taking place at the end of October, the 2026 Mexico City Grand Prix coincides with the Día de los Muertos festivities. While the actual holiday takes place in the days immediately after the race on November 2-3, the celebrations will be in full swing across the city on Grand Prix weekend.

Its symbols have found their way into the F1® paddock on race weekend, with floral displays, giant decorated helmets, pinatas and mariachi bands having become a common part of the Mexico City Grand Prix. Race weekend at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez is the sport’s biggest fiesta and the teams and drivers happily join in the fun, wearing fancy dress and sombreros or arriving at the circuit with skull-inspired face paint.

The paddock’s festivities are a small-scale version of what happens in Mexico City during the parade. In the celebrations, floats featuring alebrijes, skeletons and skulls made from wood, cardboard and papier-mache make their way through the streets, backed by giant decorative puppets known as mojigangas, along with a selection of marching bands, dancers, acrobats, jugglers and flower displays.

It is a celebration of life as much as it is of death, with family and friends gathering to deliver mock epitaphs (calaveras literarias) to those close to them. The celebrations find their way into every corner of Mexico City, from all-night parties to street food offerings, like candy sugar skulls and orange-flavoured bread of the dead (“pan de muerto”).

Nowhere can the Mexico City Grand Prix’s festival-like atmosphere be seen better than in the Foro Sol section of track. This area of track has had multiple lives. Originally built as a venue for concerts – the second-largest in the city, with a capacity of over 50,000 which has welcomed the likes of Coldplay, One Direction and Taylor Swift – it has also been a baseball stadium, hosting the popular Diablos Rojos del México and Tigres de México.

Now, it is home to Turns 13, 14 and 15 of the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez and is one of the liveliest places to watch a Formula 1® race anywhere on the calendar. The fans pack out the stadium section, cheering the drivers each time they pass from the Drivers’ Parade to the end of the race. Unusually, instead of above the team garages on the pit straight, this is also where the post-race podium celebrations take place. The fiesta continues long after the race, as a DJ entertains the crowds long into Sunday evening.

The arrival of F1® in Mexico is a city-wide attraction. From well-attended watch parties, to colourfully decorated F1®-themed murals, the sport’s reach expands far beyond the circuit gates. Audi Revolut F1® Team joins the fiesta for the first time this weekend.