Sergio Perez reveals curious details about his start at Red Bull: Why Helmut Marko had to pay a bill for 6,000 pounds for just one phone call
Sergio Perez is returning to Formula 1 this year with the new Cadillac team. After sitting out the 2025 season, the Mexican, who turns 36 this month, looks back on his turbulent time at Red Bull. In a new interview, he revealed how the team financed therapeutic help for him at the start of his career there due to the high pressure to perform.
Perez joined Red Bull in 2021 after his predecessors Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon struggled in the second car alongside Max Verstappen. But Perez also struggled, scoring only one victory that year, while Verstappen celebrated ten Grand Prix wins and won his first world championship title. “After I arrived at Red Bull and didn’t deliver any results in the first few races, they told me, ‘What you need is a psychologist, you need to see a psychologist,’” Perez reported on the Cracks podcast. The Mexican followed the advice but was surprised by the cost. “One day I walk into the Red Bull factory and they say to me, ‘Hey, here’s a bill for you.‘ It was £6,000 from the psychologist,“ said Perez. That’s the equivalent of around €7,000. ”I told them, ‘Ah, can you send it to Helmut? He’ll pay it.’ It was £6,000 for a single phone call,” he laughed.
The Red Bull motorsport consultant’s reaction was not long in coming. “Then Helmut says to me, ‘Hey, how did it go?’ I reply, ‘Perfect, we’re done with this session.’ And so we continued for three years, right? Already cured by the psychologist, the results began to come. Well, the phone call worked.”
The mental battle in the RB20
Although Perez regularly finished on the podium in the following years and scored occasional victories, he continued to struggle to keep up with Verstappen. His performance slumped in 2024 in particular at the wheel of the difficult-to-drive RB20, which ultimately cost him his cockpit.
Looking back, Perez admits that he did seek support during this phase. “In recent years, it was so much that I said, ‘Well, maybe I really need help, right? The results aren’t coming.’”
He looked everywhere for solutions, but he knew the real cause. “Deep down, I knew that you can’t be fast when you have a car where you’re constantly thinking about what’s going to happen, what it’s going to do, or which corner you’re going to crash in. And on top of that, you have your whole team against you. Publicly, that was very difficult. I think only someone who is very mentally strong can endure something like that,” Perez concluded.
