McLaren CEO Zak Brown said the changes made to the operational side of the company's Formula One team were ultimately enough to convince Daniel Ricciardo to join for 2021.
McLaren came close to signing Ricciardo for 2019, but the Australian driver chose to sign for Renault instead. That decision was made when Renault was comfortably best of the rest and McLaren was struggling.
In the time since, McLaren has overtaken Renault, finishing ahead of the team which supplies its engines in 2019. Last year the team signed highly-rated technical director James Key from Toro Rosso and added Andreas Seidl, a key part of Porsche's domination of World Endurance Championship in the last decade, as team boss.