The circuit is built around an American-style oval with long banked turns, extended by a twisty, technical infield section — an arrangement broadly similar to Autódromo Internacional de Curitiba in Brazil. The infield surface is notably rough, affecting tyre wear and setup compromise; cars must balance downforce for the slow technical infield against aerodynamic efficiency needed on the high-speed oval sections. The facility offers 18 possible layouts, and different series have used different configurations over the years.
The oval itself is a counter-clockwise paperclip shape with two long straights of 650 metres (710 yards) and corners with a radius of 118 metres (129 yards). It has served as the primary venue for the Puebla 240, a NASCAR Mexico Series oval race.
The circuit's highest international profile came through three rounds of the World Touring Car Championship, held in 2005, 2006, and 2008. The 2005 race was the first season of the revived WTCC series, and the event was nearly cancelled because the circuit was not fully ready to host competition. The series returned in 2006, then skipped 2007 when the planned event was cancelled due to circuit-related problems before coming back in 2008. A 2009 WTCC round was also held at the circuit. No further WTCC events followed, partly due to security and budget concerns in the region that cancelled the planned 2010 race.
The WTCC configuration used one layout in 2005 and a different one in 2006, 2008, and 2009, reflecting the circuit's flexibility in adapting to different series requirements.
In April 2021 it was announced that the Autódromo Miguel E. Abed would host a Formula E race in Mexico City's place, as the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez was still being used as a field hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic. The event, called the Puebla ePrix, took place on 19–20 June 2021.
The Formula E circuit layout was closely based on the WTCC configuration but with a tighter hairpin after turn 3, a rejoining of the WTCC layout at turn 6 through an infield loop, and an attack mode activation zone configured as a joker-lap alternate route — a departure from the approach used at most other Formula E circuits.
The oval configuration has been a regular NASCAR Mexico Series venue, hosting 12 races on the oval and one on an alternate road layout. The circuit's oval characteristics have made it a distinct fixture on the Mexican touring car calendar.
On 14 June 2009, during a NASCAR Mexico Series race at the circuit, driver Carlos Pardo (born 16 September 1975) was struck by Jorge Goeters on lap 97 of a 100-lap race. Pardo lost control of his car and collided sideways into the end of a retaining wall at over 200 km/h (120 mph). He was transported by helicopter to a local hospital and pronounced dead. As he had been leading at the final completed lap before the accident, Pardo was declared the winner of the race, beating Goeters by 0.044 seconds. He had started from the last row of the grid, driving for the Motorcraft team.
The circuit has hosted the 24 Hours of Mexico endurance race annually since 2006, establishing a long-running presence in the Mexican endurance racing calendar.