Brown: McLaren almost signed Daniel Ricciardo

His announcement that he would be leaving Red Bull for Renault in 2019 caught everyone by surprise but McLaren's CEO Zak Brown believes his team were almost the ones who signed the Australian rather than their French rivals.

Speaking to RACER, Brown explained that the team knew Ricciardo would be making a decision on his future sooner rather than later and up until mid-week were certain they were in the picture in securing the services of the charismatic Aussie.

“We had a couple of meetings and we are big fans of Daniel,” Brown said.

With such a huge piece of the silly season jigsaw finally solved with Ricciardo revealing where his future would be, the rest of the grid who could be on the move now have a scramble to find their own drives for 2019 and beyond.

“I think it’s thrown a spanner in the works for some other teams but we’ve got a plan which we are executing against which Ricciardo’s move doesn’t impact," Brown added.

Carlos Sainz is a name that has been touted as a possible replacement for Stoffel Vandoorne but Brown denied that the Spaniard was a part of McLaren’s vision for 2019: “No, not necessarily.