When you think of Sergio Pérez, who are the influential people in his life that come to mind? Perhaps it’s his father, Antonio Pérez Garibay, who introduced him to racing? Or maybe it’s Carlos Slim, Pérez’s “second father” whose mentorship and finances made Pérez’s Formula 1 dreams possible?
What if there was someone else even more influential? Someone whose advice and circumstance are what guided Pérez to what became his career in F1.
That person is his own older brother, Antonio Pérez Mendoza. And it all started with a crash that cost a young Pérez his karting license. That setback could have ended his racing career before it began, but it was his brother who made sure he found a path to Formula 1 instead.
Early aspirations and losing his karting licensce
Pérez’s love for racing traces back to his childhood growing up in a family consumed by the sport. Writing in the Players’ Tribune about the time, Pérez said, “[My father] used to race before he became the manager of Adrián Fernández. My brother, also Antonio, is obsessed with racing. So it’s in my blood.”
And while F1 may not have been his aspiration at this point, he knew he wanted to keep racing as long as he could. There was just one problem…
“At the start, my idea was to stay in Mexico. But then one day, I got banned.”
While karting in the Shifter 125 cc category–which he was piloting with a special permit that allowed him to race at 12 years old, a full four years under the minimum age limit–he just so happened to make contact with the wrong guy.
“I was leading that Championship, and I was leading it by a margin,” he explained on a recent episode of the High Performance Podcast. “And I had a crash with one of the guys that was very influential in the Mexican [racing] federation.
“And long story short, they removed my license.”
Pérez was instantly hooked on Europe’s competitive intensity
The loss of his license was a major blow for Pérez, affecting his ability to race in Mexico. Fortunately for him, Escudería Telmex was impressed enough with his performance in the Shifter series that they offered him a test and then signed him for the 2004 Skip Barber National Championship, which is held in the US.
Pérez would go on to place 11th overall in the Championship, earning a podium with a P3 finish during the 13th round, held at Road America. He described himself as being ‘happy’ during this time racing in the States, but it wouldn’t be until he took a trip to the UK to visit his brother, who was racing in Formula 4 at the time, that everything changed.
“It’s very different, racing in Europe versus racing in Mexico,” Pérez recalled in a 2022 interview with Autosport. “[In Mexico] it’s much more relaxed, and everyone is much more friendly. There are a lot of friendships. I guess, also, when you come to Europe, and the series are more professional, things get more serious.”
It was an eye-opening experience. In his own words, “all the best drivers were in Europe,” and suddenly everything changed for Pérez. In the Tribune, he wrote, “Suddenly, I only wanted to race in Formula 1.
“Somehow, I had to get to Europe.”
The 3AM hunt, and infuriatingly large phone bill, to find a European racing seat
As soon as he got back home to Mexico, Pérez got to work.
“I knew I had to wake up, like, at 3AM in the morning to phone all the teams in Germany to get proposals,” he told the hosts of High Performance.
“All I [would] say is, you know, I have a big sponsor, big money, and I'm very fast.”
The big sponsor in question? Carlos Slim, who by then was already backing Pérez. But even that budget couldn’t stretch to fund the amount that most European teams were looking for when Pérez came calling.
Yet Pérez persisted, and despite the infuriatingly high phone bill that he racked up with his late-night calls to Europe, for which his mother chewed him out, he eventually found what he had been looking for when Günther Unterreitmeier offered him a seat in his small German Formula BMW team that fell within the tiny budget Pérez had.
Adjusting to life alone, at 15, in Germany
“It was the only option basically to come on my own,” Pérez said to Autosport. “There was no money around to put someone else on the plane with me and, yeah, be with me [in Europe]. That would have been ideal, as I was quite young. But that wasn’t a possibility at the time.”
And so, at 15, Pérez boarded a plane by himself from Toluca, Mexico to Munich, Germany, where he met Unterreitmeier at the airport. From there, the two ventured out to a small town in the German countryside where Pérez was to live out his racing dreams.
To say that it was a shock to his system would be an understatement.
Pérez spoke about the change with Autosport, saying, “to all of a sudden be on my own – totally on my own – for weeks in a country where I didn’t even speak the language, where the weather is very different. Where the culture is different. I mean, my life just turned around within a flight, 360 [degrees], and that was the hardest thing for me, the biggest shock I had.”
It was incredibly lonely, so much so that it made Pérez contemplate quitting altogether.
“I was about to call Carlos and say, look, Carlos, thank you very much for the opportunity, but it's too tough for me to be away from my family,” he said on High Performance.
But this is where Pérez’s brother Antonio comes in again.
“I remember my brother– because he was higher up, he tried in Formula Ford and he tried to come to Europe, but then he had to stop because he didn't find [an] opportunity.
“He told me, like, the easiest way you can do is to give up and come back, you know. Because, then if you come back and you want to do it later, in two, three years time, it's over, you know.
“The opportunity is now, the time is now and you have to make the most of it.”
So what did Pérez do? He listened to his older brother.
Making the most of it
Pérez got to work in Europe, doing everything he could to become the best driver he could be. He trained hard every day, and left everything he could on the track while racing in Formula BMW. He overcame the loneliness, the language barrier and the social anxieties and ingrained himself into the community around him, both on and off the track.
The effort, of course, paid off.
“Over the next few years everything went so fast,” he writes in the Tribune. “When I was 17, I moved to Oxford to race in British Formula Three. Two years later I was doing well in the GP2 series.
“After my second season there I got a deal at Sauber.”
Pérez made his F1 debut at the 2011 Australian Grand Prix. He has since become one of the most beloved F1 drivers, both in Mexico and worldwide, has driven for five different F1 teams and helped Red Bull win two Constructors’ Championships.
And while he grew up around racing in Mexico, it took a plane ride to see his brother in the UK to really set things in motion.
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