F1
10 things you didn't know about Sergio 'Checo' Perez and Max Verstappen
Drivers Max Verstappen and Sergio “Checo” Pérez may be global celebrities who are always under the microscope, but both hold some curious secrets.
Here are 10 things you didn’t know about the Red Bull Racing boys.
MAX’S BEST VIDEO GAME DOES NOT INVOLVE DRIVING
Max Verstappen’s obsession with sim racing is well known, and his exploits with the Team Redline esports outfit, from virtual Le Mans races to the Bathurst 1000 and the 24 Hours of Nürburgring, have been covered in detail. But the depth of his passion for the FIFA series of soccer games has been covered far less. Max has played FIFA, which is now into its 29th edition, since he was a child. And his dedication to the game reached such heights that in January 2019—playing the handle crgboy007—he was ranked 21st in the world. The F1 champ has throttled back since then, but he’s still such an avid player that he travels with his own personal PlayStation game case made by custom builder JZ Design. And at last year’s U.S. Grand Prix, Red Bull team boss Christian Horner revealed that Max had spent 14 hours across the weekend playing his favorite soccer game—and then won the F1 race.
When it comes to playing FIFA, Max is all business.
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IN ANOTHER LIFE, CHECO WANTS TO MAKE DEALS
Ask most F1 drivers what they might have become had they not powered their way up the racing ladder to Formula 1, and most will look at you blankly and say they never contemplated not making it. Not Checo Pérez. The Mexican racer knows exactly what he would have done. “I would like to have been a banker or a lawyer,” he says. “I think they share the adrenaline that we live every day, and I quite like adrenaline. I think those jobs really give you that adrenaline. But it would have to be something related to sport, you know, probably as a lawyer that helps sportsmen get their contracts done, or a kind of manager.”
MAX HATES DAWDLERS
Max is a pretty tolerant guy and treats most things with a healthy degree of equanimity. There are, however, a few things that really get to him. “Lateness—when people are late for meetings, that’s annoying,” he says. “When people are not neat, when their house is dirty. And also, when people take too long to order in a restaurant. It’s really annoying in a restaurant when the waiter comes over and everyone is ready except one person who says, ‘Oh, actually I haven’t looked, what should I have?’”
Max expects efficiency from his dining companions.
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If you ever get a chance to hang out with Max, don’t make shark jokes.
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CHECO HAS A “HOLE“ LOT OF FEARS
While Max has some pretty fishy anxieties (see below), they’re probably not as uncommon as his teammate’s phobia, which goes by the name of trypophobia. Yeah, we had never heard of it either. Checo confessed in 2017 to suffering from this particular irrational fear, which involves a serious dislike of clusters of small holes, circles or bumps. We’ve yet to discover any hint that Checo’s phobia extends to a pile of tires or the cluster of rotary controls on his steering wheel.
MAX IS NOT A FISH GUY
Max suffers from what is called selachophobia or galeophobia. By any name, it’s a fear of sharks. Back in 2019, for a Red Bull Racing activation ahead of the season-opening Australian Grand Prix, Max and then team- mate Pierre Gasly were treated to a surf lesson from Australian multiple World Surf League champion Mick Fanning. Except that Gasly was the only F1 driver to get wet. “They can tell me a million times there are no sharks here, but I’m really confident that there are, and I’m honestly not really enjoying myself in the water anyway,” said the Dutch racer. Max’s dislike of the sea extends to dinnertime, too. He confessed to The Times of London that he hates “fish, in general. Well, almost all fish; some white fish is OK, but not too much.” At the 2018 Singapore Grand Prix, Max was presented with the challenge of eating chili crab, a local delicacy. Max almost vomited. We’re pretty sure Jaws is not his favorite movie.
Checo says that Ayrton Senna (pictured) is his “biggest idol.”
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CHECO’S RACING HERO IS AYRTON SENNA
A lot of F1 drivers won’t admit to having racing heroes, insisting that they’ve followed their own muse as they climbed the ladder. Checo, though, is happy to tell anyone who’ll listen that despite the fact that he was only 4 when the Ayrton Senna died, the Brazilian legend has been his inspiration. “Senna is my biggest idol,” he told Financial Times. “I always try to find people who spent time with him, to find out how he was and how he did things.” Checo even shares a manager with three-time champion Senna in the shape of veteran paddock insider Julian Jakobi, who handled the careers of both Senna and his archrival, Alain Prost.
MAX WOULD LIKE LEONARDO DICAPRIO TO PLAY HIM IN A FILM OF HIS LIFE
No stranger to the small screen, Max appeared in the first two seasons of the popular reality show Drive To Survive. Could his story one day be destined for the big screen also?
No movie is currently planned of Max’s life, but with millions of fans surely desperate to experience his epic 2021 duel against Lewis Hamilton again, a biopic could be in the works further down the line. “For now, I hope that never happens. I don't need that!” Max told The Red Bulletin in an interview at Zell am See Airfield in 2022. “But if it did happen now, then Leonardo DiCaprio could play me. That would be nice.”
CHECO HAS 4.9 MILLION FOLLOWERS— BUT DOESN’T LOVE SOCIAL MEDIA
Checo is a national hero at home in Mexico, and that has undoubtedly helped him amass 4.9 million followers on Instagram. Despite finding fame on the platform, Checo is not a massive fan of social media, reckoning that we all need to tone down the amount of time we spend monitoring our feeds. “Social media has become too much in the last couple of years, and I don’t think just for sportsmen, even for normal people,” he told The Edge podcast earlier this year. “The amount of time that we spend on it during the day is just unacceptable. So I’m not a big fan of it. It’s a great tool as a sportsman to engage with your fans, with your brands, but it’s important to make sure you control the amount of time as well, not just as a sportsman, as a human being.”
MAX DOESN’T BELIEVE IN GETTING IN THE ZONE
Plenty of athletes say they need to get into a flow state to perform at their best. Not Max. With trademark matter-of-factness, the world champion says he has no routine for race preparation. “Sometimes I’m listening to music,” he told The Race. “Sometimes I’m playing a game, sometimes walking around, sometimes I need to change quickly because I was busy with something or I’m on a call. I’m not really too fussed about it.”
McLaren rival Lando Norris, one of the Dutchman’s closest friends on the grid and a fellow member of the Team Redline sim-racing squad, begs to differ. “[Max] was born in the zone,” Lando told TalkSport this year. “That’s just the type of guy he is, or there’s just no zone for him, everything is just life.”
Checo chose number 11 as a tribute to his soccer hero, Iván Zamorano.
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CHECO IS FROM GUADALAJARA BUT SUPPORTS A SOCCER TEAM FROM MEXICO CITY
Checo hails from the central-western Mexican city of Guadalajara, home to two major soccer teams—Atlas FC and Club Deportivo Guadalajara (better known as Chivas). But, perhaps surprisingly, Checo supports neither and instead gives his allegiance to that pair’s greatest rival, Mexico City’s Club América. Checo even chose his race number in tribute to one-time Club América player Iván Zamorano. “He was my idol and was wearing number 11, so it was very easy for me to choose that,” he says. Checo’s support for the team extends to sponsorship, with the Red Bull racer investing in Mexican online car- seller Kavak, which sponsors Las Águilas.
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