Sergio Pérez had to leave Formula 1 and come back again to realise there's more to life than just racing. Now he's got his retirement home office all sorted for whenever he walks away a second time.

It's a proper office, Pérez assures ESPN, complete with a desk, a busy calendar and plenty of business to attend to. He has investments to oversee, projects to develop and a charitable foundation to run. He's certainly not short of things to keep himself occupied.

There is, for now, the small matter of finishing his Formula 1 career his own way.

On Sunday Pérez, who returned this year with the upstart Cadillac team, will celebrate his 300th grand prix in front of his adoring crowd in Mexico City, a place which returned to the F1 schedule in 2015 largely due to his superstar status at home. It's a remarkable milestone borne out of fluke and one made more remarkable by the fact that not long ago it seemed his career was done for good.

- Nate Saunders on the contradictions of Austin's COTA
- How Kimi Antonelli can win the title in Mexico City
- Fernando Alonso slams 'low quality bottom third of the grid'

Worst of all, it looked like Pérez's career had ended with the bitter taste of not being on his own terms. His four years as Max Verstappen's teammate at Red Bull -- the toughest gig on the grid -- had delivered race victories and a runner-up finish in the championship, but a promising start to 2024 gave way to a prolonged slump. By the end of the season, he was out of a drive.

In hindsight, getting through that stint of his career now is a remarkable thing.

"I'm amazed at how I did it," Pérez tells ESPN. "I don't think there are many drivers in Formula 1 who could survive that amount of challenge, I'm extremely proud of how I handled myself, in the car, out of the car, mentally, like everything I went through.

"I'm extremely proud of that period, because it was not just about driving the car, it was a lot of things, and that's really it," he adds, referencing the difficult days of 2024.

Red Bull has undergone a lot of change since he left there. Pérez's old team boss Christian Horner and the company's long-time racing advisor Helmut Marko, who famously squabbled over driver decisions for years, both left the team the following year.

"I always knew that the Red Bull period was a very special one, you know, because of all the circumstances there, I never had the opportunity to really show my proper talent there, just because how the team operates."

Pérez's year on the sidelines in 2025 and return with the upstart Cadillac team this year provided that opportunity. The Mexican driver has impressed at the struggling backmarker outfit with strong qualifying and race pace since the beginning of the season and he now has a contract to be with the team until the end of 2029. While he wanted to remind fans who the real Sergio Pérez was, he admits he had to remind himself too.

"I came back because I enjoyed a lot the racing aspect, but I had a lot of points to prove to myself, you know, like, the way I left Red Bull, I knew that it was not fair to my speed."

The 36-year-old has dismissed the notion of racing into his forties like Fernando Alonso, who will turn 46 racing for Aston Martin next season, but he's clearly not ready to walk away just yet.

Though Pérez's career has not seen him join the likes of Alonso and former teammate Verstappen as world champions, he can boast three pole positions, six wins and, as of Sunday, a triple century of race starts. That will see him move into seventh on the all-time list, overtaking Sebastian Vettel's 299. Even if he can't boast the world titles of an Alonso or Vettel, he now views all of it through a very different lens.

"There are so many drivers around the world that would dream to have the career I've had, so it's like everything in life, you always want more, but I think you have to be happy with what you have," Pérez said. "Obviously, I would have liked to be a world champion, you know, by now, but, it depends on a lot of factors. Unfortunately, Formula 1 is not just dependent on your speed and your talent, it depends on having the right surroundings, having the right support around you and all of that, and unfortunately I never had the chance in my career to be a world champion."

Dad time and a home office

Pérez's year out gave him the chance to live a life removed from the grid.

It gave him the chance to spend time with his children. He is one of just four dads on the Formula 1 grid -- former teammate Verstappen, Alonso and Nico Hülkenberg are the others.

"They have some catching up to do! I have four," he joked. Being a dad and having time to properly spend with them, away from the gruelling schedule of an F1 race season, was one of the things he repeatedly reflected on when unveiled as a Cadillac driver at the start of the season.

Clearly, it has given Pérez a grounding not many other drivers have.

"It's when life gets so much better. You realise what you work for. You have all this responsibility next to you. This is the biggest victory a human can have, to have kids, for me it's the most special. I respect people who don't want to have kids, everyone finds their happiness the way they have to, the most important thing is their happiness, but for me it's the biggest thing in life, having kids."

In his year away from F1, Pérez could finally be properly focused on family life.

When asked by ESPN if it's a proper home office set-up, he laughs.

"Yeah, it's a proper office." It's a funny mental image and a long way removed from life at 300 km/h. An F1 driver, usually squeezed inside the cockpit, visor down, focused on the road ahead, instead sat in a nice quiet office environment, working through emails on a laptop with a coffee on the desk.

"It's a bit like that," he laughs. "When I'm not racing, I'm properly into my things, into my businesses, I enjoy that, I love it. I have my office where I look at things, at my schedule, at the calendars. I do very little related to racing though."

"I like business, I like to run my things, my family office, looking for new opportunities, I get involved a lot. I love my foundation, doing things for charity. I love looking for new projects, meeting the right people, hiring good people, all of that, you know, I have a passion for that."

Pérez is also passionate about his charitable work through the Fundación Checo Pérez, which supports disadvantaged children across Mexico through educational programmes, healthcare initiatives and improvements to children's homes. More than anything else, Pérez wants to give back to the country which will welcome him back as a returning hero this weekend.

"I want to push a lot in Mexico, to bring a lot of capital into my country. I believe there's a massive opportunity there, being involved with some good brands, I would like to carry on with some of the great brands I've worked with, do a lot more for my foundation as well."

The milestone race

You wouldn't know Pérez has never won a world championship if you've ever been around him before a grand prix in Mexico. His status at home is legendary and it was even before he claimed an overdue first race victory for Racing Point at the 2020 Sakhir Grand Prix, the one which earned him the move to Red Bull the following season. At home, he's always been revered.

His podiums at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriquez in 2021 and 2022 were high points, but his 2024 visit -- which could so easily have been his last -- the lowest. He qualified 18th and then languished a lap down at the finish, a result which seemed to perfectly sum up his whole situation at Red Bull at the time. Even if he now returns with a backmarking team, he gets a chance to do it over again.

"Just having that moment back again, with all the fans ... it will be very special. Because at one stage it was like, 'we probably won't see this again ever,' you know? And it didn't end the right way. But all of a sudden we've managed to come back and they've been really supportive of me and the team."

The milestone itself only crystallised late due to world events. Coming into the season, it was due to be his 301st. The cancellation of Bahrain and Saudi Arabia's races at the start of the year due to the Iran war then meant it was due to be his 299th, but Bahrain's deal to hold its race in Malaysia a month before Mexico City's event knocked it into the perfect 300 mark. "It couldn't really be any better, you know?" he said, smiling. "To be able to celebrate my 300th race in front of my family, friends, fans and all the sponsors that have supported me."

Pérez's new deal means he should have more opportunities to race in front of his home crowd in Mexico City. But whenever he does decide to walk away, Perez finally seems to be at peace with what comes next.