Zak Brown says he is proud there was no “bad blood” between his McLa🅺ren Formula 1 team and Carlos Sainz during their split, unlike in other𒆙 driver movements for 2021.

Ferrari announced the captu🍒re on Sainz on Thursday to replace the departing Sebastian Vettel from 2021, while McLaren moved to sign Daniel Ricc🀅iardo from Renault.

Ricciardo’☂s exit from Renault wasꦏ met by a thinly-veiled dig from team principal Cyril Abiteboul, who pointed towards a lack of loyalty from the Australian after only making the switch to Enstone from Red Bull at the end of 2018.

B🧸ut Brown insisted there was no such animosity surrounding Sainz’s departure because McLaren had given the Spaniard permission to speak to Ferrari once the Italian outfit had already identified him as the ideal successor to Vettel over the winter.

"Carlos and 🌳I spoke about it, so it wasn't heဣaring stuff through the grapevine," Brown told Sky F1.

"I think how the majority of these driv🎉er movements happen is everyone is sneaking around the back of the motorhome, trying to have secret ꦡdates.

"I think McLaren has a🍌 bit of a different philosoph𒆙y on our relationships with our people, including our drivers.

"It was a conversation that Carlos had with Andreas [Seidl] and🥃 I over the winter. We ac🌠tually had to give him permission to go speak with Ferrari, and we gave him that permission, so it was very above board.

🐈“I think you can see [that] by the way we’re eventually going to part.♊ “He did a great video, which we didn’t even know he was doing, that’s something he did on his own.

“So I think there’s a real affection for the Sainz f🃏amily and McLaren and always will be,” he added. “And I think it’s great to see that drivers and teams can separate and the🗹re not be animosity.

“Because I think if you look at so♌me of the other movements, it looks like unfortunately there’s some bad blood – yet those people still need to race together th♏is year. So I’m quite proud of how we’ve handled it.”

Sainz will partner Charles Lec🔯lerc at the Scuderia on a two-year deal after his curr🔯ent contract expires at the end of the 2020 campaign.