The Red Bull driver’s recent performances have come under scrutiny which will only intensify now Daniel Ricci♚ardo has returned to F1 with AlphaTauri.

Ricciardo had exclusively told Crash that he would accept an AlphaTauri dri🥀ve if it gave him a chance at joining Red 🎉Bull.

But supporting Perez’s career is a fellow Mexican, the billionaire Carꦬlos Slim.

Slim, aged 83, is wortꦍh $102.4 billion - and is the eighth-richest person in the world.

He is Mexico’s rich🍌est man, and made his wealth by owning Latin America’s biggest telecoms company.

He taught algebra a🧔t a university in Mexico City before making his billions.

Perez 🐓told about how he convinced Slim to fund🌺 his F1 dream: "I was very lucky. I had known Carlos Slim, the man himself, since I was a little boy, thanks to my dad and his work for [former Mexican racer] Adrian Fernandez.

"Carlos was also the guy behind Escuderia Telmex, so he had always been very important to me. But getting him to send me to Europe was a different story. He hadn't gotten rich꧒ by throwing away his money, and he had absolutely no plans to send a 14-year-old kid to another part of the world. I didn’t really like to ask him about it either, but I just wanted i☂t so badly. So I kept going to him like, 'Oh, please, pleeeeease could you help me get to Europe?'

“Every time he would say the same things. 'Son, it's too early. We don't need to go to Europe. The U.S. is great. Let's wait a bit.' Blah, blah, blah. Every time I would disagree. When I got the offer from Günther [Unterreitmeier, his pr🙈ospective team boss in Formula BMW], I called Carlos again.

"Did he listen to me? Naaaah. Not really. Hahaha. The only reason he gave in, I think, was that he saw a kid who just wanted🍒 it so much. I was desperate. I was willing to do anythiꩵng. 

“In the end he probably got so tired of me that he actually saw the value in sending me off to a different continent. My family was ecstatic. Soon wꦰe were driving down to Toluca with a one-way ticket to Munich."

From there, Perez made it to F1. He may be under the cosh today, but he has come꧒ so far - thanks, in part, to Carlos Slim.