Red Bull told Perez: You Need a psychologist

Despite winning a race in 2021 and being on the podium four times, Perez did not have an easy start to life at Red Bull Racing—nothing is easy when you are Max Verstappen's teammate.

Those early struggles prompted Red Bull to ask Perez to see a psychologist in order to get help and improve.

Perez recalled: “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’."

The Mexican did see one, which turned out to be quite expensive as well. He added, “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]? He’ll pay it’. It was £6,000 for one call.

“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.”

But as Perez reached 2024, and despite enjoying strong performances in 2022 and 2023, he began to struggle again.

That ended up with him losing his seat and spending the 2025 F1 season on the sidelines, only to return with Cadillac for 2026.

Perez admitted that may have been too much even for the £6,000 therapist; he said: “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," the six-time Grand Prix winner concluded. (Source: Cracks Podcast)