Sergio Perez makes wild psychologist revelation about Red Bull F1 stint

Sergio Perez says he was instructed to see a £6000-per-hour psychologist by Red Bull early into his stint with the Formula 1 team.

The Mexican was signed to Red Bull for the 2021 season, though he encountered a difficult start to his time as he failed to score a podium inside the first five rounds.

He bagged a first win for the team in Azerbaijan at the sixth round of the season and made semi-regular podium appearances after that.

In an appearance on the Cracks podcast, Sergio Perez revealed Red Bull told him he needed to work with a psychologist early into his first season with the team, which proved to be a £6000 phone call.

“As soon as I arrived at Red Bull, in the first races, when I didn’t deliver results, [the team said], ‘What you need is a psychologist, you have to see a psychologist’.

“One day I arrived at the Red Bull factory and they tell me, ‘Hey, there’s a bill for you’. [It was] £6000 from the psychologist.

“I tell them, ‘Ah, can you send it to Helmut [Marko], he’ll pay it. It was £6000 for one call.

“Then Helmut tells me, ‘Hey, how did it go?’. I told him, ‘Perfect, with this session we’re all set’. And that’s how we went on for three years.

“Already cured by the psychologist, the results started to come. Well, the call worked.”

Perez won five grands prix in total for Red Bull, and managed a best of second in the championship in 2023.

A lacklustre 2024 season, however, in which he slumped to eighth in the standings, led to him losing his drive.

“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.”

Perez will return to the F1 grid this year with the new Cadillac team.