The announcement on Tuesday that four-time Formula 1 World Champion Sebastien Vettel would leave Ferrari at the end of this season has triggered an early start to the traditional F1 silly season of driver movements.
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Within hours it was confirmed that 25-year-old Spaniard Carlos Sainz, son of World Rally Championship great Carlos senior, would replace Vettel as team mate to emerging superstar Charles Leclerc.
While that ended speculation that Daniel Ricciardo might get the plum seat with the iconic Italian team it opened the door for the 30-year-old Ricciardo to announce that he would be Sainz's replacement at the resurgent McLaren team.
At this point Vettel has only stated he will leave Ferrari at the end of the season, which is when his current contract expires, but there is no indication as to whether he will continue with another team.
The only realistic option would be to replace Ricciardo at Renault but then he will have the same problem he endured in 2019 with a younger, and potentially faster, team mate in Esteban Ocon.
Last year 32-year-old Vettel had to play second fiddle to his 22-year-old team mate Charles Leclerc who was competing in only his second season in F1.
Contrast that to Vettel who has been competing in F1 for 13 years with 240 starts, 53 wins and 57 pole positions.
Leclerc outqualified and outpointed Vettel last year and finished in front of the German driver in the final standings and there is no doubt Vettel would have been privately miffed at being upstaged.
I doubt Vettel will go to Renault as their continuation in the championship may be tenuous due to an almost-certain reduction in funding to the team.
The French government owns 15 per cent of Renault and with the economy going backwards due to the pandemic they may put pressure on Renault to stop spending millions of dollars desperately needed for the country's survival.
Just to add some spice to the speculation it's even been suggested two-time world champion Fernando Alonso, who retired from F1 racing at the end of 2018, could be a replacement.
The 38-year-old raced for Renault from 2003 to 2006 during which time he won his back-to-back championships in 2005 and 2006 and then after just one season with McLaren moved back to Renault for two years.
The other option may well be current Renault driver Nico Hulkenberg who was going to be dumped at the end of the season to make way for Esteban Ocon.
Sainz is going to be under immense pressure at Ferrari from the team, from the over-the-top Tifosi and especially the Italian media, and that's apart from trying to match or better the brilliant Leclerc. Good luck with that.
Sainz has been competing in F1 for five years commencing in 2015 with Toro Rosso and then in 2017 he was seconded to Renault for the final four races of the season to replace the underperforming Jolyon Palmer.
After a full season with Renault in 2018 Sainz moved to the McLaren team to finish sixth in the championship and score points 13 times in 21 races.
So far in 102 F1 starts Sainz has only scored one podium when he was elevated to third position after Lewis Hamilton was penalised in Brazil last year for an incident with Alexander Albon.
In contrast to his oft-criticised 2019 move to Renault, Ricciardo has made a really smart move to join McLaren at a time when they seem to be heading back towards their glory days.
In the 34 years between 1976 and 2008 McLaren won 182 races (second only to Ferrari),12 driver championships and eight constructors championships but since 2008 when Hamilton won the championship it's been lean pickings.
Last year McLaren was the big improver in the championship, finishing fourth and best of the rest in the constructors title behind the big three Mercedes Benz, Ferrari and Red Bull.
The highly rated former Porsche engineer and manager of the successful Porsche LMP1 sports car program Andreas Seidel joined McLaren last year and immediately initiated positive changes for the operation.
And just to put the icing on the cake for Ricciardo, McLaren will switch from Renault power units to Mercedes Benz in 2021.
Ricciardo's team mate will be 20-year-old rising star Lando Norris who scored 11 top ten results in his 2019 rookie season and that is going to be an interesting dynamic.
Ricciardo is well known for his laid-back, easy-going and comic style outside the cockpit and Norris, who looks like he is still in grade ten, is very much in the same mould.
Ricciardo has already experienced what it's like to have a fast team mate previously in Max Verstappen but I'm tipping he will enjoy this challenge.
