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

Ricciardo had exclusively told Crash that𝓡 he would accept an AlphaTauri drive if it gave him a chance at joining Red Bull.

But supporting Perez’s career is a fellow 𓆉Mexican, the billiona🎃ire Carlos Slim.

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

He is Mexico’s richest man, and made his wealth by owning Latin America’s biggest telecom♐s company.

He taught🦩 algebra at 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 rich by throwingღ 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 it 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. E🐠very time I would disagree. When I got the offer from Günther [Unterreitmeier, his prospective team boss in Formula BMW], I called Carlos again.

"Did he listen to me? Naaaah. Notღ 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 anything. 

“In the endꦡ 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 we 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 come so far - thanks, in part, to Carlos Slim.