As one of Mexico’s biggest concert promotion companies, Corporación Interamericana de Entretenimiento (CIE) knows a thing or two about revival acts.

But this one is different. This time, it has taken 11 years to get the band back together. On Friday, Mexico City will again ring to the sound of Formula 1 when the engines are fired up for opening practice at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez.

In an era of Azerbaijan-esque expansion where almost no venue is held sacred regardless of its heritage, Mexico is a rare example of F1 returning to one of its spiritual homes. It held its first F1 race in 1962 – a non-championship affair won by Jim Clark, who took over teammate Trevor Taylor’s car mid-way through – and joined the world championship a year later. (Clark won that race, too, LEFT).

It fell off the calendar for the first time after 1970, returned in 1986, and vanished again after Nigel Mansell added the Mexico trophy to his huge haul in 1992. It’s a race that drew as many as 200,000 fans in its early years, and boasts a lineage of home-grown drivers ranging from the Rodriguez brothers for whom the track is named right through to Sergio ‘Checo’ Perez, who will line up on the grid on Sunday.

Expectations for F1’s return to Mexico are high, and so is the pressure, according to CIE’s Federico Gonzalez. But he’s confident that the stage is set for a glorious comeback.

Q: After all of the effort that has gone into bringing Formula 1 back to Mexico, it must feel strange to finally be where you are now.

FG: We’re almost there. We’re finally almost there. After a year of planning and working really hard, we’re almost at the big moment after a 23-year-absence for Formula 1 in Mexico.

Q: Why do you think F1’s return to Mexico is so significant?

FG: It’s been a long wait, and F1’s Mexican fans are really excited that it is finally coming back. It’s going to be a completely new generation of fans coming to this race. We’ve almost completely sold out the tickets that we put on sale, so we’re pretty enthusiastic. And with how fast the tickets sold, we definitely believe that the enthusiasm from the Mexican fans is there.

Q: What sort of crowd are you expecting? Are they mostly racing fans, or people who are just curious to come and see what it’s all about?

FG: To be honest, I don’t know right now what proportion of the people who are coming are hardcore Formula 1 fans, and how many are people that are just coming for the experience. That’s something that we’ll only figure out over the second and third years; how many came this time because they really love F1 and how many are coming because they want to be part of the event for the first time. It’s really a huge deal here. And having Checo on the podium in Russia really helped our ticket sales, too. His timing couldn’t have been better! I was going to tell my bosses that I planned that, but they probably wouldn’t believe me.

Q: There have been other attempts to revive the Mexican Grand Prix in the past. Why is 2015 the right time?

FG: Two reasons. For starters, Mexico is enjoying a good time – a lot of the rest of the world is struggling economically and having problems and Mexico of course is part of that, but it is also going through some changes, social changes. And it’s also the right time because we have a Mexican driver. If you imagine promoting this Grand Prix as a table, you think of the four legs. One is the federal government, which has invested a lot of money with us. There is the Mexico City government. There is the fact that some Mexican companies have been investing in drivers for several years. And then, I don’t think a Mexican Grand Prix would be the same without a Mexican driver. So you pull all of those things together, and you see why now is the perfect moment for this race.

The momentum for this has been building for a long time. As you probably know there were some plans to have the race in Cancun, and some other places in other parts of the country, and unfortunately they didn’t happen. And I think it’s only now that those four legs, those four pillars, have really come together.

Q: Formula 1 has expanded into a lot of new markets over the past decade, but a lot of those races have struggled to really establish themselves. Will Mexico’s exisiting F1 heritage give it an advantage over places like Turkey in that regard?

FG: I think Mexico’s heritage definitely helps. People already know what to expect. But there is also a new generation of fans following Checo and Esteban [Gutierrez]; the new Mexican heroes. I think that helps in terms of the organization, it helps in terms of the people knowing what to expect. But I think that the audience will increase in the future, because in F1 terms, Mexico has been living in the ‘dark side’ – all of the European races happen at 5 a.m. in Mexico. This lets the fans actually enjoy the show outside of their house, and I think that’s going to be very important for Mexicans. For the past 23 years, they’ve only experienced this on TV. They haven’t had live experience. Of course you have the people who fly overseas and attend races in other countries, but this time everybody is coming out of the darkness – watching the race from their bed – and actually going out to see it for real. That’s one of the reasons I think it’s going to be such a great experience for everyone.

Q: Is being so close to Austin – both geographically and in terms of the schedule – a good thing or a bad thing for you guys?

FG: I think we’re going to learn that in the future. I don’t know whether Austin sold more tickets or less tickets this year. But in the coming years we’ll know more. We’ve sold all of the tickets that we’ve made available so for this year, we’re fine. For the second year, maybe some people are going to choose between Mexico and Austin, but time will tell us the answer to that.

Q: How different has organizing the Mexican Grand Prix been to the sorts of projects that CIE is usually involved with?

FG: We’ve never done anything this big. This is a completely new adventure and it has been a real challenge for the group, even though we have 25 years experience in selling tickets as concert promoters for pop, and rock, and Broadway musicals. We have 25 years of experience in managing arenas and stadiums. We’re putting all of that experience into Formula 1, but for us, it’s a completely new and challenging activity. We’re trying to view it as just another event, but the stage … instead of being 200 square feet, the stage is five kilometers. [ED: the circuit is just over 2.6 miles long]. Instead of having one singer, we have 20 singers, driving in very fast cars!

So in some ways it is similar, but we’re approaching this with a lot of respect because it’s completely different; it’s a big international event. We’re learning that – I mean, I have never done interviews with guys like you who are outside Mexico City before. We are aware of that, and we are working hard because we feel the pressure and expectation, and we are committed to delivering a good event.