Sergio Perez is reportedly set to remain on F1's grid next season, replacing Alex Albon at Red Bull Racing for 2021.
Multiple reports - including from Speedweek, a website owned by the Red Bull energy drink company - claimed on Thursday night that Perez will be announced as Max Verstappen's teammate at RBR on Friday while Albon will remain as the outfit's reserve driver.
Dutch daily De Telegraaf, whose F1 reporter Erik van Haren is close to the Verstappen family, has also published a report saying Perez's deal with Red Bull is signed and sealed.
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Perez's nomination would obviously please the Mexican's many fans who would rightly consider as a sporting injustice the talented 30-year-old absence from the grid in 2021, what's more after winning his maiden Grand Prix earlier this month and becoming the first Mexican to triumph in F1 in more than 50 years.
A veteran of 191 race starts in F1 with Sauber, McLaren and Force India/Racing Poin, Perez would inherit a potentially championship winning seat at Red Bull Racing although Verstappen will prove a hard nut to crack, as Albon can attest.
The British-Thai racer was promoted to Red Bull after the summer break in 2019, just twelve races into his F1 career with Toro Rosso.
Albon justified his promotion by scoring as string of seven consecutive top-ten finishes with the Milton Keynes-based outfit, and only missed a spot on the podium in his eighth race at Interlagos because of a clumsy move by Lewis Hamilton.
But a lack of consistency this season and a performance gap to Verstappen that he never succeeded in closing has likely left Albon a day late and a dollar short in terms of retaining his full-time drive with RBR.
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