Daniel Ricciardo has replaced Nyck de Vries at AlphaTauri for the rest of this season.
Make no mistake, though – this development has far bigger implications than your average driver move to the team sitting rock-bottom in the constructors' championship.
For De Vries, it is a cruel blow. He spent so long chasing his Formula 1 dream and was overlooked on so many occasions before finally getting onto the grid this year. However, there is little room for sentiment in this sport.
He failed to score a point in any of his 10 outings for AlphaTauri and so Red Bull have acted. Their reserve driver Ricciardo has been loaned to their sister team until the end of this season, while they figure out a long-term plan for that seat.
It is a lifeline for Ricciardo, who was looking for a return to the F1 grid but would not have expected it to come along so soon. That said, the prospect of driving arguably the slowest car on the grid will not be one that greatly excites him.
Despite his McLaren woes, the 34-year-old still believes he can cut it at the sharp end of the grid. That is where he wants to be – driving around at the back and scrapping for the small points when a chance comes along will not be enough to satisfy the Aussie.
Red Bull chief Christian Horner said at Silverstone at the weekend that he is not planning for a potential Ricciardo return to his team in the future. Regardless, though, that will undoubtedly be the Aussie's aim.
It will, of course, be the seat currently held by Sergio Perez upon which Ricciardo has set his sights. The Mexican won two of the first four races this season but has since gone off the boil, failed to qualify in the top 10 for a race in two months and slipped to 99 points behind team-mate Max Verstappen.
Horner has constantly defended his driver, insisting repeatedly that Perez's place is safe until the end of his contract in 2024. He'll most likely continue to do that in public, but the manner of this arrangement with AlphaTauri over Ricciardo will only add to the weight on Perez's shoulders.
First of all, the Aussie now has a chance to prove to the whole world that he has, as Horner recently said, "got his mojo back". It will be tough to do so at a team which has scored just two points in 10 races so far this year, but it is an opportunity nonetheless.
Horner may be stating publicly that Ricciardo won't get another chance with Red Bull, but it was interesting to see the team specify that this AlphaTauri move is a "loan" arrangement. First of all, while commonplace in football, temporary switches from one F1 team to another are not exactly a regular thing.
But, most interestingly, it implies that Red Bull Racing wants to ensure that one of Ricciardo's feet remains in their camp. As much as they continue to back Perez publicly for now, it is hard to imagine a situation in which a contingency plan hasn't been at least outlined in case the Mexican's current woes continue to spiral.
It may well be that Ricciardo can force his way back into the team's plans with some inspired performances between now and the end of this season. A more long-term option might by Yuki Tsunoda who, despite being quiet in the last two or three races, has shown excellent progress so far in his third F1 season.
For now, Perez's seat is safe. But Ricciardo's AlphaTauri move has given him a potential springboard back into his old seat and the Mexican needs to quickly rediscover his form in order to shut down any chance there may be of that happening.
