Sergio Michael “Checo” Perez Mendoza, born January 26th 1990, drives under the Mexican flag for Red Bull Racing. His first race win came at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix and made him the first Mexican driver to win a Formula one race since Pedro Rodriguez won the Belgian Grand Prix in 1970. Sergio Perez, or Checo, as he is affectionately known is the most successful Mexican driver that has ever raced in Formula One. He got his start in F1 with the Sauber team in 2011 while he was a member of the Ferrari Driver Academy. After two years at Sauber, Checo replaced Lewis Hamilton at McLaren when Hamilton moved to the Mercedes team in 2013. After a disappointing season in which McLaren failed to score any podium finishes and Checo’s overly aggressive driving style was often in question it looked like he might be out of Formula One after only three years. Rumors had been circulating, and on November 13th it was confirmed that Checo would be leaving the McLaren team with no race seat secured for 2014. Fortunately for Checo, he had his best race of the season at the Indian Grand Prix on October 7th where he narrowly missed coming in 3rd for a podium finish by half a second. It was enough to impress Vijay Mallya, the owner of the Force India team at that time, and on December 12th it was announced that Checo would be driving for Force India in 2014 with a 15 million Euro deal. After seven seasons honing his skills, Checo finally landed at a top team in 2021- Red Bull Racing. In his short time there he’s helped his teammate, Max Verstappen, win three Drivers Championships and two Constructors Championships for the team.
Sergio was born in Guadalajara, Mexico to parents Anotonio Perez and Marilu Mendoza de Perez. He has an older sister, Paola, and an older brother, Antonio, who used to race stock cars and is the 2008 NASCAR Corona Cup champion. In 2012 Sergio started the Checo Perez Foundation to support orphans and other at risk children. His sister, Paola, is the president. Checo is married to Carola Martinez and has three children. He started racing karts at the age of six and turned a lot of heads as he rose through the ranks competing against much older drivers. Checo’s father, a former driver himself, was managing legendary Mexican IndyCar driver Adrian Fernandez at the time and had begun to form a relationship with the son of billionaire businessman Carlos Slim. Eventually, when Checo was fourteen years old, he received a call from Slim who said that his company Telmex would sponsor him if he was willing to race outside of Mexico. It was a tough call for Perez to leave his home country, but he decided to make the leap and went to the United States to drive in the Skip Barber National Championship with only minimal funding. After one season, Checo had an opportunity to move to Europe and drive in Germany’s Formula BMW series, eventually moving up the ranks through the other F1 feeder series until he finished second in the 2010 GP2 Championship, which led to his Formula One seat at Sauber.
It’s naturally assumed that Carlos Slim and Telmex rolled out the red carpet and paid for everything to help Checo get to Formula One, but they were only willing to pay for cars and entry fees. The reality is that it was up to Perez to pay for his travel and personal expenses. At the age of fifteen, when Checo moved to Germany he had to purchase a one-way ticket and found himself living alone in a restaurant that his German team owner was building at the time. A team like Red Bull doesn’t need a pay driver. They only want the best driver they can get and there was a lot of hard work and perseverance on Perez’s side. His attitude of “never give up” has paved the road for him, and in fact he’s had to be overly aggressive at times to assert his place on the grid. After an incident in 2013 with Kimi Raikkonen at the Monaco Grand Prix, Raikkonen was asked post-race what his thoughts about Checo were and he replied that he should be punched in the face. At the time, Checo’s teammate at McLaren, Jenson Button, said he was taking unnecessary risks. But this is what makes Sergio Perez the perfect teammate for Max Verstappen who has run his other teammates into the ground. Being older than most of the other drivers, Checo knows how difficult it was for him to make it to a top team and he will not go down without a fight.