‘Grand responsibility’: How Checo Pérez became Mexico’s sporting hero

If he’s being honest, Sergio ‘Checo’ Pérez doesn’t like the comparison.

The veteran Formula One driver doesn’t like to be held up against other prominent Mexican athletes, who – with the exception of him – have largely disappointed this year.

“You have to give credit to the athletes who try, who get up every morning whether or not the results come in at the end of the day,” Pérez recently said in Spanish. “But I think as Mexicans, we have to rid ourselves of the idea of who is better, who is worse, and always looking to pit Mexican athletes against each other.”

Nonetheless, he grasps that sports fans in his home country of 129m – eternally grappling with sometimes incomprehensible levels of poverty, violence and gubernatorial corruption – see him as perhaps their best hope to deliver whatever competitive glory may come in 2022.

Mexican boxer Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez fell off the top of his sport’s pound-for-pound rankings after losing a decision to Dmitry Bivol in the light heavyweight division amid celebrations of Cinco de Mayo, which commemorate a famous victory over a French army in 1862.

Despite securing a berth for the upcoming Fifa World Cup in Qatar, the men’s national soccer team failed to defeat continental rivals USA or Canada during qualifying, putting into doubt whether the squad can hang with the global elite. And the men’s U-20s failed to qualify for that age category’s world championship, shaking confidence that there’s youthful prospects waiting in the wings to return Mexico to regional – let alone international – prominence.

Yet Pérez, 32, has interrupted the steady drumbeat of underachievement. In his second season with Red Bull Racing, he secured his first-ever pole position at the Saudi Arabian Grand