Perez: "I thought, 'This is not remotely like Formula 1'"

His racing career began to take serious shape when he moved to Europe as a teenager. All alone, he arrived at a hotel on the highway, where mostly truck drivers stayed overnight. "It was full of trucks. The drivers slept there for a few hours and then moved on," Perez begins his story.

Moving to Europe seemed like deception to Perez

"I thought, 'This is not Formula 1. It doesn't look like Formula 1 in the slightest'," he continued. The Mexican had a difficult start, struggling with homesickness and a language barrier. "I was all alone and was very lonely. I only played computer games for four weeks."

By his own admission, he didn't have much else to do. "I had no phone and no internet, " the Red Bull driver continues. Later, his team owner offered him to come and live in his restaurant, which was already a great improvement for the driver. "I was hungry all the time because it smelled of food, so the chef wasn't too happy that I was living there," jokes the Mexican.

For a long time, Perez continued to suffer from loneliness and even considered giving up and returning to Mexico. The language barrier remained a major problem during his stay in Germany. "My engineers spoke bad English and I spoke bad English, so that didn't make it easier," he explains.

"That and the loneliness had a negative impact on my performance, and I considered going back home. On the other hand, I didn't want to give up because I knew that if I did, I would never come back," Perez says.