Daniel Ricciardo "fits" with the McLaren brand and team supremo Zak Brown.

That is the view of Gil de Ferran, the former Indy 500 winner who now heads McLaren's Indycar project.

The Brazilian was recently also McLaren's F1 sporting boss, and he told Globo Esporte's Na Ponta dos Dedos podcast that he can see why his friend Brown would sign Ricciardo for 2021.

"My opinion is a personal one, but Daniel is very fast and has won and competed for Formula 1 championships," de Ferran said.

"These days I am a little further away so it's hard to know what Andreas Seidl intends, but I know Zak Brown well, I worked with him a lot, and I think that Ricciardo fits.

"You never know 100 percent, but I think Daniel will fit in well with the team," he added.

De Ferran also thinks Formula 1's first 'ghost races' starting next month in Austria will go smoothly, after the American categories Indycar and Nascar got up and racing recently without spectators.

"I think they've done their best in the circumstances," he said.

"Nascar has already done some races and we've done one, and the reception in the United States was positive. Our race was quite interesting, so there's nothing negative on that side."