Zak Brown is open to💜 considering options that would allow McLaren to sign technical director James Key from Toro Rosso early, saying the Formula 1🌼 team has a "plan" to negotiate his current contractual situation.

McLaren announced on Thursday that Key would be 168澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果♒历史:jo🍬ining as its new technical director, but offered no details regarding a start date.

Toro Rosso responded to the announcement by clarifying that Key had a 168🃏澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果历史:"long-term, vali🗹d contract" still to run, meaning he could remain with the team for up to 12 mo♚nths before being allowed to join McLaren.

Brown confirmed in a press briefing on Saturday that he was not c﷽ertain when Key would start🌱 work with the team.

"We have hired James Key," Brown said. "He will become our technical director. We do not yet have a start date. He does have ✃a current agreement with Toro Rosso which of course, we respect contractual situations.

"I think Toro Rosso and Red Bull are understandably upset that they're losing a great talent like James Key. I think he's recognised as one of the best technical directors up and down the pit lane. We're very excited to ha🔴ve him join us in due course."

Brown said McLaren would be open to considering options to try 🌄and get Toro Rosso to release Key from his contract so he can make the move across early, potentially involving a financial settlement or using a driver as a makeweight.

"There's always in the world of Formula 1 ways and opportunities to change situa🌳tions. That's certainly something that we'd potentially c♋onsider, but we have a plan," Brown said.

"We obviously knew his current emp⛄loꦅyment situation and are completely comfortable working around that situation.

"As we've stated before, we've done some restructuring. We've done some hiring. We're not done yet, so we're just head down, ♈operating according to the internal plan that we have."

Toro Rosso is known to have m💎ade an approach for McLaren youngster Lando Norris earlier this year as a possible replacement for Brendon Hartley, while Stoffel Vandoorne has also been linked with the Red Bull B-team as part of the driver market movements for 2019.