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Sergio Perez's Untold Hurdles to F1, Cold Calls, Language Barrier, but Still Made It

Every top F1 driver has a story to tell of how they struggled to get to the top. Most of these stories involve endless hours perfecting their skill through training and dedication. Sergio Perez’s story is quite different. His journey began when he gave up everything in his hometown in Mexico and moved to Europe as a teenager to pursue his F1 racing dream.
Sergio Perez 6 photos
Photo: YouTube Screenshot/Redbull
F1 Redbull RacingF1 Redbull RacingSergio PerezSergio PerezSergio Perez
Perez grew up in Guadalajara in Mexico. He didn’t have quite a normal childhood. Unlike his agemates, Perez spent a lot of his time traveling all over Mexico with his dad and brother competing in races. Sometimes he’d have to travel for up to 10-hours back home and still wake up in the morning for school.

Perez’s older brother was racing in UK’s Formula 4 Championship, which inspired him to look in that direction to enhance his career. The level of competitiveness in Europe impressed Perez and he quickly realized if he wanted to make it in Formula 1, he had to move to Europe.

His sponsor in Mexico was Carlos Slim. Slim didn’t want Perez to make the jump into Europe because he felt he was too young, but Checo would stop at nothing to achieve his racing dreams.

He searched through the Internet and collected several racing team email contacts and sent them proposals to convince them to take him on board. Due to time differences, he had to wake up at 4 am to make cold calls. It had a devastating effect on the telephone bills, which his parents were not happy about.

He got a lot of responses, but sadly, they were too expensive. Fortunately, one team reached out with an attractive package, and Perez took it.

He took a one-way ticket to Germany, and to his surprise, it was nothing like he had imagined. He checked into a truck stop motel and battled loneliness, playing video games for weeks. Later, the team boss booked him to live in one of his restaurants, which came as a relief.

Soon, he started racing. It was his second season racing but his first time in Europe. It was great since he had the chance to go to Hockenheim ring, Nürburgring, among others. But there was one problem, the language barrier, which significantly affected his communication with his teammates and engineers.

Furthermore, Perez was in a small team that wasn’t as equipped as their competitors. They also shared a car, which affected their confidence in the end. Inevitably, he started performing poorly, to the point of wanting to go back home.

He didn’t lose hope and kept forging ahead. He called Slim back in Mexico, and he agreed to move him to British F3, where he joined a fantastic team. It is at this point that he started realizing his racing dreams.

No matter how crazy your dream sounds, it can definitely be possible,“ Perez says.

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About the author: Humphrey Bwayo
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Humphrey is a car enthusiast whose love and passion for automobiles extended into collecting, writing, driving, and working on cars. He got his passion for cars from his Dad, who spent thousands of hours working on his old junky 1970 E20 Toyota Corolla. Years later, he would end up doing the same with a series of lemons he’s owned throughout his adult life.
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