Inside Sergio Perez’s life including £4.3m collection and driving ban

Sergio Perez is one of the biggest names in Formula One, but he has had to work extremely hard to get there. His journey to the top has been fascinating both on and off the track, with more than a few bumps along the way.

The 33-year-old Mexican driver made his F1 debut in the 2011 season and has since driven for Sauber, McLaren, Force India, Racing Point and currently Red Bull.

Perez’s journey into racing began at the age of six when he began karting. He rose up through the junior ranks and progressed onto Formula BMW and Formula 3, but he needed a helping hand to make the jump to F1.

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With no Mexican racing idols to look up to as a kid, Perez had never really thought about racing in Formula One.

Any dreams he did have hit a speed bump when he was banned from racing in his early teens. During a karting race, he crashed into an older driver who was very influential within the Mexican racing federation. The next thing he knew his license was removed and he didn’t race in Mexico again for a decade.

Perez explained the incident in the Players Tribune: “At the start, my idea was to stay in Mexico. But then one day, I got banned. When I was in my early teens, I had a special permit that allowed me to race go-karts against much older drivers.

“I was leading the championship, but then I crashed with this guy who was very powerful within the Mexican racing federation. Long story short, they withdrew my license.

Desperate to move to Europe and follow his passion, Perez developed a routine of waking up at 3am every night in order to make cold calls to European racing teams and beg them for opportunities. This got him into trouble with his mother due to how expensive the overseas calls were – so he switched to emails.

Eventually, a small German Formula BMW team owner named Guenther Unterreitmeier offered Perez a very cheap racing programme. The 14-year-old Perez couldn’t afford it though, so he pestered the richest man in the world.

In order to fund his career in Europe he approached Mexican multi-billionaire Carlos Slim. Perez knew Slim as a friend of his father, and at just 14 managed to persuade him to fund his move to Germany to participate in Formula BMW. Slim and Perez Snr got to know each other through former driver Adrian Fernandez, who became Sergio Perez’s manager. 

Perez explained how he persuaded Slim – who currently has a net worth of £77billion, according to Forbes – to fund his motorsport ambitions in the Players Tribune.

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“Carlos was also the guy behind Escuderia Telmex, so he had always been very important to me,” Perez wrote. “But getting him to send me to Europe was a different story. He hadn’t gotten rich by throwing away his money, and he had absolutely no plans to send a 14-year-old kid to another part of the world. I didn’t really like to ask him about it either, but I just wanted it so badly. So I kept going to him like, ‘Oh, please, pleeeeease could you help me get to Europe?’

“Every time he would say the same things. ‘Son, it’s too early. We don’t need to go to Europe. The U.S. is great. Let’s wait a bit.’ Blah, blah, blah. Every time I would disagree. When I got the offer from Günther [Unterreitmeier, his prospective team boss in Formula BMW], I called Carlos again.

“Did he listen to me? Naaaah. Not really. Hahaha. The only reason he gave in, I think, was that he saw a kid who just wanted it so much. I was desperate. I was willing to do anything. In the end, he probably got so tired of me that he actually saw the value in sending me off to a different continent. My family was ecstatic. Soon we were driving down to Toluca with a one-way ticket to Munich.”

Slim is still seen at races supporting Perez, and has continued to help him since arriving in F1 – with the Telmex sponsorship regularly seen on his cars.

Nowadays, Perez – known as Checo – is a household racing name, despite having only ever won four races and yet to win a championship.

That can partly be attributed to the fact that he has primarily driven for mid-pack teams and played second fiddle to other drivers, namely Max Verstappen at Red Bull.

He also has himself to blame – his aggressive driving style has in the past resulted in crashes that have cost him points and podium positions.

Despite his lack of first-place finishes, Perez is the fourth highest-paid driver in Formula One. According to Forbes, he took he was paid $10m by Red Bull in 2022, a season in which he won both the Monaco and Singapore Grand Prix and finished third in the overall individual standings. 

He also took home $16m in bonuses and has an estimated net worth of $30m.

As a professional racing driver, Perez understandably likes his cars. He reportedly owns five luxury cars, including a Bugatti Chiron, a McLaren 720S, a Mercedes Benz AMG, a Porsche Panamera and a BMW X7. His collection has a combined value of £4.3m.

Checo got married to his long-term partner Carola Martinez in 2018. The couple enjoyed a luxurious ceremony and as Catholics, were blessed by Pope Francis himself.

Perez’s devotion to his religion and the Pope is with him wherever he goes – even in his F1 cars. The Mexican has pictures of Our Lady of Guadalupe and Pope John Paul II – who he met as a child and says gives him extra strength – in his cockpit.

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