[3] Pontus Tidemand and Jonas Andersson were the defending rally winners of WRC-2, but they did not participate in the event.

[6] Ott Tänak and Martin Järveoja led both the drivers' and co-drivers' championships for the first time in their career, with a seven-point ahead of Thierry Neuville and Nicolas Gilsoul.

In the manufacturers' championship, M-Sport Ford WRT led Škoda Motorsport by sixteen points, with eleven-point-behind Citroën Total in third.

Yoann Bonato and Benjamin Boulloud were second, with Adrien Fourmaux and Renaud Jamoul in third in each standings, another eight points behind.

The 2019 edition of Rally Mexico started with a curtailment of the opening stage due to an irreparable damaged jump.

Teammate Dani Sordo also forced to retire from the day due to electrical issue.

Despite a front-left puncture, he still reduced his time loss to just twenty seconds as his teammate Esapekka Lappi went off the road and caused the red flag, which saved his rally-winning chances.

[13] However, Kris Meeke wasn't as fortunate, as he suffered a puncture on the following Otates stage, with damaged suspension, which dropped him from the lead down to fifth place.

[14] Eventually, Ogier net his fifth Mexico victory with a power stage victory, surpassed Thierry Neuville in the drivers' standings in second, narrowing to four points off the championship leader Ott Tänak, who finished second overall, with Elfyn Evans got his first podium finish of the season.

The damaged ramp was met with criticism, deeming it to be unnecessarily dangerous to both drivers and spectators,[15] and allegations of cheating surfaced with Kris Meeke accusing Citroen of abusing red flag rules to give Ogier an unfair advantage;[16] Meeke would later retract his statement in an apology.