Helmut Marko: Driver Aid Cost Revealed

According to Sergio Pérez, Helmut Marko hired a very expensive psychologist when the Mexican had mental complaints during his time at Red Bull Racing.

Pérez joined Red Bull Racing in 2021 and the Mexican showed some good results after a rough start. However, these only came after Red Bull advisor Marko ensured that Pérez talked to a psychologist, as Checo himself now indicates in the Cracks Podcast.

“When I didn’t get results in the first races, I was told to see a psychologist”Pérez begins the conversation on the podcast.

“I was open to everything, of course. So I talk to the psychologist and say, ‘Hey, call me Sergio Perez’, ‘blah blah blah’ from an English guy. I said, ‘Hey, I don’t have time for a session today, but let’s meet up, find a moment. Perfect.'”

Pérez then comes up with a bizarre revelation, because Marko – who received a huge amount of money after his Red Bull exit – had to pay quite a bit of money for the short conversation with the psychologist, he says.

“And one day he comes to the Red Bull factory and says, ‘Hey, there’s a bill for you’ – for £6,000. ‘Can you send it to Helmut, please? He’ll pay it.’”

“It cost £6,000 for one call!”he exclaimed. “So Helmut says: ‘Hey, how did it go…? Perfect, we’re done with this session’. And that’s how we lasted for three years, healed by the psychologist.”

The phone calls helped at the beginning, as Pérez started to perform better and better. But at the end of his Red Bull stint he discovered that there was more to it, he believes.

“The results started coming… eventually the call worked. And then in the last few years it got so bad that I said, ‘Well, maybe I need help after all – there’s no results coming’.”