The 1992 Mexican Grand Prix was a Formula One motor race held at Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City on 22 March 1992. It was the second race of the 1992 Formula One World Championship.

The 69-lap race was won from pole position by British driver Nigel Mansell, driving a Williams-Renault. Italian teammate Riccardo Patrese finished second, with Michael Schumacher third in a Benetton-Ford, the first of an eventual 155 podiums for the German driver (and also the first podium for a German driver since the Jochen Mass's third place in the 1977 Canadian Grand Prix).

The Hermanos Rodríguez circuit had a reputation for being very bumpy, and by this point the condition of the track had deteriorated even further; the perceived decline of Mexico City itself with increasing crowding and pollution problems arguably made the event look bad for Formula One's glamorous image at the time. This was the final Formula One race in Mexico until 2015, when the Grand Prix was revived on a revised Hermanos Rodríguez circuit.

Pre-race On 20 February 1992 Mexico city officials put out a smog alert due to the dangerous air pollution levels in the city. Alerts mandated restrictions on operating heavy motorized equipment. The Mexican Grand Prix committee had to delay work paving sections of the track.

The planned pre-qualifying session was again cancelled, as it had been in South Africa, where the Andrea Moda team was excluded from the event due to non-payment of the $100,000 guarantee required for new teams. With the guarantee now paid, FISA clarified that if Andrea Moda came to Mexico with two new cars that met the regulations, the team would be reinstated in the Championship. Therefore team owner Andrea Sassetti abandoned the C4B car with its Coloni origins, and brought forward the introduction of their new car, the Simtek-designed Andrea Moda S921, which was originally intended for the fourth round in Spain. The team brought two hastily built S921s for Alex Caffi and Enrico Bertaggia, but the cars could not be made ready in time for pre-qualifying. Sassetti withdrew his cars, citing "freight delays" as extenuating circumstances. With only four cars remaining in the pre-qualifying pool, the session was cancelled.

Qualifying Qualifying report During the Friday qualifying session, Ayrton Senna hit one of the bumps in the Esses, lost control of his McLaren, and crashed into a perimeter wall at . He suffered whiplash and a severely bruised leg, and did not take any further part in this session, but was deemed fit enough to participate in the Saturday session.

Nigel Mansell took pole position in his Williams-Renault by 0.016 seconds from teammate Riccardo Patrese. The Benettons of Michael Schumacher and Martin Brundle made up the second row of the grid, though Schumacher's time was over 0.9 seconds slower than those of the Williams and Brundle's time was nearly 1.3 seconds slower than Schumacher's. The McLarens made up the third row, Gerhard Berger ahead of a still-sore Senna. The Dallaras impressed with JJ Lehto seventh and Pierluigi Martini ninth; between them was Maurício Gugelmin in the Jordan. Jean Alesi completed the top ten in his Ferrari; his teammate Ivan Capelli could only manage 20th.

The four non-qualifiers were Aguri Suzuki in the Footwork, Paul Belmondo in the March, and the two Brabhams of Eric van de Poele and Giovanna Amati. This was the first time in the Brabham team's history that neither of its cars had qualified.

Qualifying classification Pos No Driver Constructor Q1 Q2 Gap 1 5 Nigel Mansell Williams-Renault 1:16.346 1:16.648 2 6 Riccardo Patrese Williams-Renault 1:17.908 1:16.362 +0.016 3 19 Michael Schumacher Benetton-Ford 1:17.554 1:17.292 +0.946 4 20 Martin Brundle Benetton-Ford 1:18.937 1:18.588 +2.242 5 2 Gerhard Berger McLaren-Honda 1:18.604 1:18.589 +2.243 6 1 Ayrton Senna McLaren-Honda 1:23.063 1:18.791 +2.445 7 21 JJ Lehto Dallara-Ferrari 1:19.982 1:19.111 +2.765 8 33 Maurício Gugelmin Jordan-Yamaha 1:20.246 1:19.355 +3.009 9 22 Pierluigi Martini Dallara-Ferrari 1:19.767 1:19.378 +3.032 10 27 Jean Alesi Ferrari 1:21.434 1:19.417 +3.071 11 4 Andrea de Cesaris Tyrrell-Ilmor 1:19.423 1:24.117 +3.077 12 12 Johnny Herbert Lotus-Ford 1:20.450 1:19.509 +3.163 13 29 Bertrand Gachot Venturi-Lamborghini 1:21.656 1:19.743 +3.397 14 15 Gabriele Tarquini Fondmetal-Ford 1:20.386 1:19.769 +3.423 15 32 Stefano Modena Jordan-Yamaha 1:19.957 1:20.469 +3.611 16 3 Olivier Grouillard Tyrrell-Ilmor 1:20.709 1:19.961 +3.615 17 23 Christian Fittipaldi Minardi-Lamborghini 1:20.042 1:20.202 +3.696 18 11 Mika Häkkinen Lotus-Ford 1:20.145 1:20.390 +3.799 19 16 Karl Wendlinger March-Ilmor 47:56.613 1:20.200 +3.854 20 28 Ivan Capelli Ferrari 1:20.223 1:21.120 +3.877 21 24 Gianni Morbidelli Minardi-Lamborghini 1:21.019 1:20.227 +3.881 22 25 Thierry Boutsen Ligier-Renault 1:20.709 1:20.395 +4.049 23 14 Andrea Chiesa Fondmetal-Ford 1:21.902 1:20.845 +4.499 24 30 Ukyo Katayama Venturi-Lamborghini 1:22.188 1:20.935 +4.589 25 9 Michele Alboreto Footwork-Mugen-Honda 1:21.396 1:21.064 +4.718 26 26 Érik Comas Ligier-Renault 1:21.122 1:21.963 +4.776 27 10 Aguri Suzuki Footwork-Mugen-Honda 1:21.617 1:21.187 +4.841 28 17 Paul Belmondo March-Ilmor 1:23.508 1:21.504 +5.158 29 7 Eric van de Poele Brabham-Judd 1:22.937 1:22.197 +5.851 30 8 Giovanna Amati Brabham-Judd no time 1:25.052 +8.706 Sources:

Race Race report Stefano Modena, having qualified 15th in the other Jordan, had to start the race from the pit lane.

Nigel Mansell dominated the race straight from the pole position, finishing the race 12 seconds ahead of Patrese and 21 seconds ahead of Michael Schumacher. Senna's transmission broke on the 11th lap, ending his race prematurely; teammate Berger finished 4th, salvaging some pride for McLaren in the farewell race for the MP4/6. Gerhard Berger managed to get ahead of Martin Brundle with a battle that managed to last for eight laps until Brundle was able to move back up to fourth on lap 44 but soon retired with engine trouble on lap 47, ending the battle for fourth. At the front, Mansell won with Patrese making it a Williams 1–2 again ahead of Schumacher, Berger, de Cesaris and Mika Häkkinen scoring the final point for Lotus for the second race in succession from South Africa and respectively the Finn's first point of the season.

Race classification Pos No Driver Constructor Laps Time/Retired Grid Points 1 5 Nigel Mansell Williams-Renault 69 1:31:53.587 1 10 2 6 Riccardo Patrese Williams-Renault 69 + 12.971 2 6 3 19 Michael Schumacher Benetton-Ford 69 + 21.429 3 4 4 2 Gerhard Berger McLaren-Honda 69 + 33.347 5 3 5 4 Andrea de Cesaris Tyrrell-Ilmor 68 + 1 lap 11 2 6 11 Mika Häkkinen Lotus-Ford 68 + 1 lap 18 1 7 12 Johnny Herbert Lotus-Ford 68 + 1 lap 12 8 21 JJ Lehto Dallara-Ferrari 68 + 1 lap 7 9 26 Érik Comas Ligier-Renault 67 + 2 laps 26 10 25 Thierry Boutsen Ligier-Renault 67 + 2 laps 22 11 29 Bertrand Gachot Venturi-Lamborghini 66 + 3 laps 13 12 30 Ukyo Katayama Venturi-Lamborghini 66 + 3 laps 24 13 9 Michele Alboreto Footwork-Mugen-Honda 65 + 4 laps 25 20 Martin Brundle Benetton-Ford 47 Engine 4 15 Gabriele Tarquini Fondmetal-Ford 45 Clutch 14 14 Andrea Chiesa Fondmetal-Ford 37 Spun off 23 22 Pierluigi Martini Dallara-Ferrari 36 Handling 9 27 Jean Alesi Ferrari 31 Engine 10 24 Gianni Morbidelli Minardi-Lamborghini 29 Spun off 21 32 Stefano Modena Jordan-Yamaha 17 Gearbox 15 3 Olivier Grouillard Tyrrell-Ilmor 12 Engine 16 1 Ayrton Senna McLaren-Honda 11 Transmission 6 23 Christian Fittipaldi Minardi-Lamborghini 2 Spun off 17 33 Maurício Gugelmin Jordan-Yamaha 0 Engine 8 16 Karl Wendlinger March-Ilmor 0 Collision 19 28 Ivan Capelli Ferrari 0 Collision 20 10 Aguri Suzuki Footwork-Mugen-Honda 17 Paul Belmondo March-Ilmor 7 Eric van de Poele Brabham-Judd 8 Giovanna Amati Brabham-Judd

Championship standings after the race

Drivers' Championship standings PosDriverPoints 1 Nigel Mansell 20 2 Riccardo Patrese 12 1 3 Michael Schumacher 7 1 4 Gerhard Berger 5 2 5 Ayrton Senna 4Source:

Constructors' Championship standings Pos Constructor Points 1 Williams-Renault 32 2 McLaren-Honda 9 3 Benetton-Ford 7 6 4 Tyrrell-Ilmor 2 1 5 Lotus-Ford 2Source:

References