Carlos Slim Domit Backed Checo Pérez. Now Rafael Câmara Has a Haas Seat

On Oct. 28, Sergio “Checo” Pérez will take a Formula 1 car down Mexico City’s Paseo de la Reforma, giving fans an early taste of the Mexico City Grand Prix on Nov. 1. The demonstration will celebrate Pérez’s return to his home race with Cadillac and his approaching 300th Grand Prix appearance. It will also put a familiar collection of Mexican telecommunications brands back in front of thousands of racing fans.

Telcel, Infinitum and Claro, all part of América Móvil, signed on as partners of Cadillac’s debut F1 team in January. Behind the deal is Carlos Slim Domit, chairman of América Móvil and one of Pérez’s earliest and longest-running supporters.

But Slim Domit has more than Checo to celebrate. On Oct. 15, Haas announced that it had signed Brazilian driver Rafael Câmara to a multiyear deal for 2027. Câmara, who races in Formula 2 and is backed by Slim Domit’s Telmex/” title=”Escudería Telmex” class=”company-link”>Escudería Telmex, will replace Esteban Ocon at the American team.

For nearly a quarter-century, Slim Domit has nurtured racing talent, helped bring Formula 1 back to Mexico City and found ways to put his family’s brands in front of motorsport fans. His investment has helped produce Mexico’s most successful modern F1 driver, and now another young racer is on his way to the grid. But how much is Checo worth to Slim Domit’s companies, and can the program produce another star with the same commercial appeal?

Carlos Slim Domit’s long road to Formula 1

If Slim Domit’s name sounds familiar, that’s because he’s the eldest son of billionaire Mexican businessman Carlos Slim Helú. He began his career at the tobacco company Cigatam before moving into telecommunications, eventually becoming one of the principal figures overseeing his family’s businesses.

Today, Slim Domit chairs the boards of América Móvil, Telmex, Grupo Carso and Grupo Sanborns. América Móvil operates across 22 countries in Latin America and Europe, giving the family’s telecommunications brands considerable reach beyond Mexico.

But motorsport has long been one of Slim Domit’s passions outside the boardroom. He raced go-karts in his younger years and, in February 2002, founded Escudería Telmex with former racer Jimmy Morales to help develop Mexican and Latin American driving talent.

Pérez first met Slim Domit at a racetrack near Guadalajara when he was around six years old, according to ESPN. He would become the program’s most famous success story, making his Formula 1 debut with Sauber in 2011. Other notable drivers supported by Escudería Telmex include Memo Rojas Jr. and Esteban Gutiérrez.

The program’s results extend far beyond Checo. In June, Escudería Telmex announced its 700th victory across national and international racing series. Câmara earned the milestone by winning the Formula 2 feature race in Barcelona. By the program’s own count, its drivers have also accumulated more than 1,700 podium finishes and 92 championships.

Slim Domit has always seen racing as both a commercial opportunity and a personal passion. In a 2012 interview with Expansión, he described the sport’s natural overlap with telecommunications, citing its speed, modernity, technology and international competition. He also advocated bringing Formula 1 closer to Latin America, where his family’s companies were expanding.

He was among the prominent backers of bringing Formula 1 back to Mexico City, which finally happened in 2015 after a 23-year absence.

“People love athletes in sport in Mexico, and I think Mexico stood behind Checo long before the sport grew the way it has,” Tiggy Valen, creator of Paddock Project, a platform focused on the business of F1, told Observer.

What Checo brings to América Móvil

Pérez’s value to Slim Domit’s family businesses isn’t simply about results on the track. His popularity offers América Móvil something an ordinary advertising campaign might struggle to buy: a connection with Mexican consumers built on national pride.

“Pérez makes a global sponsorship personally relevant to Mexican consumers. Supporting a driver whom fans identify with gives Telcel, Infinitum and Claro an opportunity to build an emotional connection around otherwise functional services,” Hafsa Samahri, founder of motorsport marketing and sponsorship agency wntrmedia, told Observer via email.

“He’s a money-printing machine, and he’s very good at bringing in sponsorships,” Samahri said in a separate interview. “Checo’s biggest asset is national pride. He’s a national hero.”

That loyalty may be particularly valuable in a sport where drivers’ careers can swing dramatically from one season to the next. Pérez left Red Bull after a difficult 2024 campaign, spent 2025 away from the grid and returned this year with Cadillac alongside Valtteri Bottas.

His comeback has yet to produce championship points. Through the Singapore Grand Prix on Oct. 11, Pérez had failed to score in Cadillac’s debut season. But the family’s continued association with him suggests his value as a spokesman for their brands isn’t necessarily tied to his standing.

The financial return on that relationship is harder to establish. América Móvil and Cadillac have not publicly disclosed the value of their sponsorship agreement, nor is there a published figure showing how much additional business Pérez brings to Telcel, Infinitum or Claro.

The Mexico City Grand Prix offers some indication of the sport’s broader economic reach. According to figures released by race organizers, the 2025 event generated an estimated 6.715 billion pesos in direct economic impact and 13.125 billion pesos in media exposure value, for a combined 19.84 billion pesos. The race also supported an estimated 10,649 jobs, while cumulative attendance over the three-day weekend reached 401,326.

Those figures come from studies commissioned by the organizers, and they don’t measure América Móvil’s sponsorship returns. But they help explain why brands with deep roots in Mexico want to be associated with one of the country’s biggest sporting events.

The Grand Prix’s contract runs through 2028, giving sponsors several more years of exposure to the sport’s Mexican audience.

Valen believes the partnership benefits Slim Domit’s companies through brand recognition and goodwill. Pérez’s image, she pointed out, is everywhere in Mexico City, where the connection between a home-country hero and the businesses supporting him carries more emotional weight than an ordinary advertisement.

Who could be Slim Domit’s next Checo?

Slim Domit has stuck with Pérez through the ups and downs, but his approach to nurturing drivers has always gone beyond what they do behind the wheel.

In a 2021 interview with ESPN, he explained that Escudería Telmex encouraged its drivers to pitch other brands for sponsorships, teaching them how to build commercial relationships that could sustain their racing careers.

That approach is increasingly relevant as Escudería Telmex’s roster extends beyond Mexico.

Valen pointed to Câmara, the Brazilian driver who won the Formula 3 championship in 2025 and now leads the Formula 2 standings, as a possible next success story. A member of the Ferrari Driver Academy and an Escudería Telmex-backed driver, Câmara has attracted F1 attention throughout the season.

“Obviously, he’s not Mexican, but the Slim Domit companies are expanding beyond just Mexico and have other presences in different Latin American countries, so I could see that being a diversification play going forward,” Valen said.

Valen also identified Haas as a possible destination for Câmara in 2027. That possibility became a certainty on Oct. 15, when the American team confirmed his signing. The 21-year-old, who tested with Haas in Portugal in August, will make his Formula 1 debut next season.

Escudería Telmex also celebrated the announcement, adding another driver to Slim Domit’s racing program headed to the sport’s highest level.

Closer to home, there’s Noel León, the Mexican Formula 2 driver already backed by Escudería Telmex. León earned his first F2 victory in Montreal in May, giving Mexican fans another young racer to watch.

“Noel León’s Telmex backing and race-winning progress in Formula 2 make him relevant to the discussion, although they do not establish him as a designated successor,” Samahri said via email.

León and other aspiring F1 drivers will soon have another chance to compete in front of Mexican fans. Formula 2 will make its Mexico City debut in October 2027, bringing the developmental series to the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez during Grand Prix weekend.

There’s no indication that Slim Domit is ready to move on from Pérez, and Samahri believes Checo still has plenty to offer his sponsors. His commercial appeal, after all, was built over years, not a single season.

“I would assess a future investment through sporting potential, a credible route into F1, relevance to the brands’ markets and the cost of developing the relationship,” she said.

“It’s not impossible to replicate Checo’s success, but it’s just extremely hard, and it will take a lot of time.”

Slim Domit has already spent 24 years doing precisely that. Pérez remains the face of his program in Mexico, but with Câmara now signed to Haas, the businessman has another driver—and another market—to show for his patience.