The circuit was designed as a thesis project by student Óscar Fernández in 1953 and built in the Magdalena Mixhuca public park in 1959. It sits at an elevation of 2,238 metres (7,343 ft) above sea level, making it one of the highest-altitude permanent circuits in the world. The thin air reduces aerodynamic drag, allowing cars to run higher downforce configurations with less penalty on straight-line speed, while naturally aspirated engines suffered significant power losses.
The circuit was named after brothers Ricardo Rodríguez (1942–1962) and Pedro Rodríguez (1940–1971), two of Mexico's most celebrated racing drivers, both of whom died in racing accidents. The circuit received the Hermanos Rodríguez name officially in 1979.
The track hosted its first Formula One Grand Prix in 1962 as a non-championship event, the same race in which Ricardo Rodríguez suffered a fatal crash at the Peraltada during qualifying — a suspension failure sent his car into the barriers. The following year, the Mexican Grand Prix became a full World Championship round, and the circuit remained on the F1 calendar through 1970. That year, dangerously overcrowded spectator areas created unsafe conditions and the race was removed from the schedule.
During this period the Peraltada curve's high-speed, banked character gave the circuit a character reminiscent of Monza's Parabolica, though the banking allowed even greater cornering speeds. Cars would carry enormous momentum through the corner onto the 1.2-kilometre (0.75 mi) front straight, where turbocharged cars of the later era regularly exceeded 330 km/h (205 mph).
Formula One returned to Mexico City in 1986 following a significant circuit upgrade that included a new pit complex and improved safety infrastructure. The Peraltada remained the defining feature of the layout. Nigel Mansell won the Mexican Grand Prix twice in this period, in 1987 and 1992, and famously passed Gerhard Berger around the outside of the Peraltada in 1990 — a manoeuvre considered one of the boldest overtakes of the era. Turn 17 was later named in Mansell's honour when the circuit was reconfigured for 2015.
The circuit left the F1 calendar again after 1992, this time due to safety concerns that organisers were unable to resolve within the existing layout.
The Peraltada was the central feature that distinguished the original layout from its successor. An uninterrupted, gently banked sweeper, it was taken flat-out or near-flat-out by many cars of the era, generating spectacular high-speed cornering. It was at this corner that Ricardo Rodríguez lost his life in 1962, and the circuit's most celebrated and most tragic moments are inseparable from it.
After the final F1 Mexican Grand Prix on the original layout in 1992, a baseball stadium — eventually known as Foro Sol and later Estadio GNP Seguros — was constructed inside the Peraltada curve. When Champ Car racing returned in the 2000s, the Peraltada was partially bypassed by a series of sharp turns entering and exiting the stadium complex, fundamentally changing the circuit's character. The 2015 Formula One renovation retained the stadium infield section and further modified the esses and front straight, producing the current 4.304-kilometre layout. The unobstructed Peraltada of the 1962–1992 era does not exist in its original form at the circuit today.
The original Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez layout is significant in motorsport history as a venue that produced some of Formula One's most memorable races across two distinct periods, bookended by tragedy and defined by one of the sport's most dramatic high-speed corners. It established Mexico City as a Latin American motorsport capital and gave the Rodriguez brothers' name a permanent place in the sport's geography.