Sergio Perez Net Worth 2026: The $130M Sponsor Behind $50M

Last updated: October 1, 2026  ·  By Nathan Cole

Sergio “Checo” Pérez’s net worth in 2026 is estimated at $50–75 million, anchored at $50 million. The Mexican Formula 1 driver — six Grand Prix wins, 2023 championship runner-up — rebuilt his career this year with the debutant Cadillac F1 Team after Red Bull dropped him in December 2024.

Three money stories define the fortune. First, a €8 million base salary at Cadillac (about $8–9 million), reported by RacingNews365 in February 2026. Second, the sponsor machine behind him: Mexican telecom giant Telmex pumped an estimated $130 million into Red Bull during his four seasons there, per Brazilian outlet Grande Premio. Third, the comeback itself — after a year out of the sport, Pérez called his scoreless Baku weekend in September 2026 “one of my best” and rates his return “close to 10,” with rival teams reportedly already sniffing around his 2027 options.

Sergio Perez Net Worth 2026: –75 Million

The honest answer is a range, because the outlets that track driver wealth don’t agree on the ceiling. Most settle at a flat $50 million — that’s the figure carried by PlanetF1 (August 2026), GiveMeSport (September 2026), Prestige (April 2026), and the Kenyan outlet Kahawatungu (February 2026).

The high end comes from F1Oversteer, which in May 2026 put Pérez’s wealth “as high as $75 million,” citing his personal sponsorship deals and his habit of tracking the stock market. F1 Salaries, via the January 2026 grid-wide listicle, published the explicit $50–75 million band. We anchor at $50 million because it’s the most repeated figure across independent outlets, and we show the $75 million ceiling because the sponsor economics behind him genuinely support it.

The €8 Million Cadillac Contract: 2026 Salary Decoded

RacingNews365’s leaked 2026 salary list, reported by beIN SPORTS on February 10, 2026, puts Pérez on €8 million a year at Cadillac — 12th on the grid, outside the top 10 for the first time in years. The National’s September 2026 update lands in the same place at $8–9 million. Two outlets (SportBible, PlanetF1) published a lower $5 million in January 2026, before the season’s reporting settled.

Either way, it’s a pay cut from his Red Bull peak — and a two-year deal with an option for a third, per beIN’s August 2025 contract report, which also noted an equal-treatment clause alongside teammate Valtteri Bottas. That clause matters: Pérez’s Red Bull years were defined by playing second fiddle to Max Verstappen.

The 0 Million Telmex Machine

Here is the number no Perez profile leads with, and it’s the most important one for understanding his wealth. Brazilian outlet Grande Premio reported that Telmex — the Mexican telecom giant — pumped $130 million into Red Bull across Pérez’s four seasons there. F1Oversteer relayed the figure in 2024. The money followed the driver: when Racing Point released him at the end of 2020 in favor of Sebastian Vettel, Red Bull signed him and inherited the relationship.

The backing goes back to karting. Telmex, part of Carlos Slim’s América Móvil empire (Slim was the world’s richest person from 2010 to 2013), funded Pérez through Escudería Telmex when he was a teenager racing Skip Barber in the United States. The logos of Telmex subsidiaries Telcel and Claro rode on his helmet and the Red Bull livery for four seasons.

Spanish outlet MARCA reported the annual mechanics: Pérez’s sponsors — Claro, Telcel, Interprotección, Infinitum — contributed roughly $30 million a year to Red Bull, effectively covering his salary several times over. Red Bull even approved a personal merchandise line for him, an unusual concession. His market value was never just lap time; it was 133 million Mexicans and the North American races at Miami, Austin, Mexico City, and Las Vegas that his fanbase fills.

Six Grand Prix Wins That Built the Brand

Pérez didn’t arrive at Red Bull as a pay driver. He arrived as the man who won the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix for Racing Point from last place on the opening lap — one of the great drives of the modern era. Six wins across 14 seasons made him, per Prestige’s April 2026 ranking, one of the most talented drivers never to win a championship.

“Minister of Defense”: The 2021–2023 Red Bull Peak

Max Verstappen gave him the nickname after the 2021 Abu Dhabi finale, when Pérez’s defensive driving against Lewis Hamilton helped Verstappen win his first title. It stuck because it was true — tire management and racecraft were his weapons, and 2023 was the payoff: runner-up in the championship behind Verstappen, the best season of his life.

Forbes noticed. In 2022 it ranked him the fourth highest-paid driver in Formula 1, salary plus endorsements combined. At his peak he was earning like a top-tier star without ever being the team’s lead driver — the sponsor portfolio (KitKat, Nestlé, Mercado Libre, Hawkers sunglasses, and a Disney documentary on his 2023 season) filled the gap between his paycheck and his market value.

Why Red Bull Fired Him in December 2024

The collapse was swift. After signing a two-year extension early in 2024 that would have kept him at Red Bull through 2026, Pérez scored just nine points across the final eight races and finished eighth in the championship — his worst result in years, one season after finishing second. Red Bull slipped to third in the constructors’ standings.

The exit was announced in December 2024 as a mutual parting. It wasn’t cheap: Helmut Marko admitted to sport.de that buying out the 2025 and 2026 seasons cost Red Bull “several million dollars.” SportsLeo’s account of the saga notes Pérez had insisted through the autumn that he would race for Red Bull in 2025 — the decision, insiders said, was made for him after the Abu Dhabi finale.

The cruel irony: his successors fared worse. Liam Lawson lasted two races in 2025; he and Yuki Tsunoda combined for seven points after Pérez left. Verstappen welcomed his old teammate’s Cadillac return at the 2025 Dutch Grand Prix, texting him the moment the news broke.

The Cadillac Comeback: 2026 Season So Far

After a year away from the grid, Pérez joined General Motors-backed Cadillac for its debut season alongside Valtteri Bottas. He admitted to Racer in August 2026 that he had doubts about returning at all — “a little bit burnt with the sport” — then rated his comeback “close to 10.” Early in the season he held a clear edge over Bottas, though the gap has narrowed.

The signature weekend came at Baku on September 27, 2026. Pérez qualified 20th, took a three-place grid penalty for impeding, and fought through to 14th — matching his best Cadillac result on the streets where he won twice. He called it “one of my best” weekends in Formula 1, blaming the car’s straight-line speed and aerodynamic drag rather than his driving. Cadillac remains scoreless in its debut year — Bottas’s 13th in China is still the team’s best finish — and no major upgrades are expected before 2027.

Two milestones frame the season’s end: Pérez reached 296 Grand Prix starts in September 2026, eighth all-time, and will pass Sebastian Vettel’s 299 to join the 300 club before the year is out. And for 2027, Cadillac is reportedly considering Colton Herta — with Bottas, not Pérez, believed to be the driver at risk.

Endorsements, Stocks, and an Electric Boat Team

Beyond the Mexican telecom backing, Pérez’s commercial life is unusually hands-on for a driver. He told Red Bull’s official site in April 2021 that the first app he checks each morning is CNBC — “I really enjoy looking at the stock market and I even own some stocks, too.” F1Oversteer cited that investing habit in May 2026 when justifying its $75 million ceiling.

In January 2024 he launched his own team in the E1 World Championship, the electric powerboat series, hiring Dani Clos and Vicky Piria to race his 50-knot RaceBird. And his Checo Pérez Foundation, founded in 2012, built houses for families hit by the 7.2-magnitude Oaxaca earthquake in 2018.

Cars, House, and Lifestyle

SportsTiger’s garage inventory reads like a dealership showroom: a Bugatti Chiron worth about $3 million, a McLaren 720S at roughly $1 million, a Mercedes-AMG near $790,000, a Porsche Panamera around $305,000, and a BMW X7 near $200,000. The same outlet reports a 15,000-square-foot house in Mexico. These figures come from older profiles and should be read as reported rather than verified — but the Chiron alone explains why driver-wealth trackers keep his floor at $50 million.

Family: Carola Martinez and Four Children

Pérez married Carola Martinez in 2018 after meeting in their twenties. Their first son, Sergio Jr., was born in December 2017, and three more children followed. The family stays largely off social media by choice. When he announced the Cadillac return, he said the decision was made as a family — “this was the right thing for us as a family, as a project, to get back to enjoy it.”

How the Million Estimate Holds Together

Add up the reported base salaries — roughly $4M + $5M + $8M + $8M at Red Bull, plus earlier Sauber, McLaren, Force India, and Racing Point years — and career on-track earnings land well above $60 million before tax. Layer in a decade-plus of Mexican corporate endorsements, the CNBC-tracked investments, and the E1 team, then subtract taxes, management, and a very expensive garage. The $50 million anchor is the number that survives every outlet’s math; the $75 million ceiling is where the sponsor economics and investment income push it.

The table above is illustrative, showing the scale of each layer — not a precise accounting, which no public source provides.

Sources & Reporting

Figures in this profile reflect reporting through September 2026. Key sources: RacingNews365 via beIN SPORTS (the €8M 2026 salary list, February 2026); Grande Premio via F1Oversteer (the $130M Telmex figure); MARCA via sports.info (the ~$30M/year sponsor contribution); F1Oversteer (the $75M ceiling, the CNBC investing habit, the 300-club milestone, September 2026); F1 Chronicle and FansBRANDS (the Baku “one of my best” weekend, September 2026); Fox Sports Australia and GP-News (the “close to 10” comeback rating, August 2026); SportsTiger (the Red Bull salary history and car collection); PlanetF1 and GiveMeSport (the $50M consensus figures, August–September 2026). Where outlets disagree on salary or net worth, the article publishes the range and explains why.

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