Sergio Perez has revealed Red Bull funded a pricey therapy session to support him back when he raced for the team in Formula 1.
Perez joined Red Bull in 2021 after both Pierre Gasly and Alex Albon struggled in the outfit’s second car, but he took just one victory that year as team-mate Max Verstappen won 10 grands prix on his way to a maiden world title.
“As soon as I arrived at Red Bull, in the first races, when I didn’t deliver results, [they told me] ‘What you need is a psychologist, you have to see a psychologist’,” Perez told the Cracks podcast. So the Mexican did.
“On top of that you have your whole team against you. Publicly it was very difficult”
Sergio Perez
“One day I arrive at the Red Bull factory and they tell me, ‘Hey, there’s a bill for you’ – £6,000 from the psychologist. I tell them, ‘Ah, can you send it to Helmut [Marko, Red Bull advisor]? He’ll pay it’. It was £6,000 for one call,” he laughed.
“Then Helmut tells me, ‘Hey, how did it go?’. I tell him, ‘Perfect, with this session we’re all set’. And that’s how we went on for three years, right? Already cured by the psychologist, the results started to come. Well, the call worked.”
Albeit a consistent podium finisher and occasional race winner, Perez kept struggling relative to Verstappen and his performance collapsed in 2024 at the wheel of a tricky RB20, which led to his exit from the squad.
“In the last years, it was so much that I said, ‘Well, maybe I do need help, right? The results aren’t coming’.
“I looked for it everywhere, but deep down I knew perfectly well that when you have a car where you’re thinking about what’s going to happen, what it's going to do, in which corner you’re going to crash, you can’t go fast. And on top of that you have your whole team against you. Publicly it was very difficult. I think only someone very mentally strong can withstand something like that.”
Having sat the 2025 season out, Perez – who is turning 36 this month – is returning to F1 this year with the new Cadillac outfit.
Additional reporting by Federico Faturos
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