Revealed: Sergio Perez’s huge salary at Cadillac F1
Huge money involved in Sergio Perez's deal with Cadillac
Sergio Perez’s return to F1 with Cadillac will be highly profitable.
Perez and fellow veteran Valtteri Bottas have been confirmed as the first two drivers of Cadillac’s Formula 1 era.
Cadillac enter the sport next season as its 11th team so their F1 2026 driver line-up was the source of intrigue.
They have opted for vast experience but that know-how has come at a hefty price.
Sergio Perez is big money business for Cadillac
Sergio Perez will be paid close to $10m, according to RecordMX in his home nation of Mexico.
That fee would be approximately the same as his salary at Red Bull.
That fee would reportedly place him seventh in the list of F1 driver salaries.
Only Max Verstappen, Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc, Fernando Alonso, Lando Norris and George Russell would be paid more.
Perez would also earn extra money from bonuses for championship position, podiums and race results.
That is routine fare for every F1 driver on the grid.
But this report from Mexico also suggests Perez will be paid bonuses based on how much merchandise he sells.
His huge popularity in his home country means having Perez in their car can be lucrative business for Cadillac.
The RecordMX report claims that Perez sold the second-most amount of worldwide merchandise, of any F1 driver, during his Red Bull stint. Only Hamilton sold more.
Around 65% of Red Bull merchandise sales in Mexico were specific to Perez, it claims.
Perez brings sponsors including Telcel, Kit Kat, Maja and Patrón who could follow him to Cadillac, ensuring the team profit from his inclusion.
His time in F1 appeared to be over at the end of last season when he was axed by Red Bull.
Perez’s inability to score points frequently in 2024 heavily contributed to Red Bull conceding the constructors’ championship to McLaren.
His form, from when he defended Hamilton brilliantly at the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix to enable Max Verstappen to win the F1 title, had deserted him.
But his final races in the Red Bull now look slightly different due to the struggles of his successors.
Both Liam Lawson and Yuki Tsunoda - not to mention Verstappen himself - have battled with the tricky RB21 this season.
Red Bull are supposedly eyeing up another new driver, Isack Hadjar from sister team Racing Bulls, as a new teammate for Verstappen in 2026.
In this article
James was a sports journalist at Sky Sports for a decade covering everything from American sports, to football, to F1.
