McLaren against notion of early 2021 F1 driver swap

McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown says his Formula 1 team has no interest in bringing forward a swap of 2021 drivers for this season.

With Ferrari opting to replace Aston Martin-bound Sebastian Vettel and sign Carlos Sainz for next season, McLaren responded by swooping to prize Daniel Ricciardo away from Renault to fill the seat vacated by the Spaniard.

There have been suggestions that all the teams involved could agree to an early contract release to allow the drivers to switch to their respective 2021 teams and start getting up to speed.

But Brown is completely against the notion because he feels McLaren is benefitting from its current line-up, while rival teams are a “bit more destabilised”.

"We're happy with our driver line-up this year," said Brown. "We're happy with everyone else's driver line-up this year.

"I think we have two drivers that are doing an excellent job, and some other teams which have disruption in their garage.

"So I think I want to continue the harmonious relationship we have going on right now.

“And I think if we were to consider changing that, it would maybe only be to the benefit of other teams that are maybe a little bit more destabilised in the garage."

McLaren team principal Andreas Seidl said he is excited by the prospect of Ricciardo’s impending arrival at the Woking outfit when discussing the Australian’s strong form this season.

“I watch him very closely, same as I did before, and I’m happy what I see,” Seidl explained. “You can see also this season he is a very special driver on the grid.

“He’s continuously pulling off the performances which, knowing that he will join us next year, I’m very happy about because also next year we will also have a very strong driver line-up which is very important on our journey hopefully back up the order in Formula 1.”