After a somewhat lean year of Formula One, Denis Hulme came to the fore in the final round of the 1969 World Championship series at Mexico City on October 19th. Driving a two-year-old works McLaren he beat Ickx’s Brabham to the line after 65 laps of hard racing. Again the interesting and well appointed Magdalena Mixhuca circuit was in use and an enormous crowd was attracted despite the fact that this year the World Championship had been settled much earlier in the favour of Stewart.
The field of 17 cars was almost identical to that at the United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen two weeks earlier. Only two cars were missing from the 19 seen there, Hill’s Lotus obviously out of commission, while BRM had sent their reserve car to an exhibition. Nevertheless they were still three strong, with the Canadian Eaton again joining regulars Surtees and Oliver. The only other change from America was that Miles was back in the Lotus 63 4wd car replacing Andretti.
One of the main problems with racing at Mexico City is the effect of the high altitude of over 7,000ft. But Cosworth had this completely solved, with a different cam for the metering units on the V8 engines.
