Carlos Sainz appeared to have his name forgotten by one of his McLaren colleagues during practice for this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix.As the 24-year-old was making his way around the track he was radioed by race engineer Tom Stallard, who confusingly began the conversation with “Darren, it’s Tom... sorry Carlos!”A laughing Sainz then responded with “Hello Tom, I’m Darren!”The amusing interaction caused a stir with viewers, who began wondering whether ‘Darren’ was a nickname for Sainz, the English translation of his Spanish name or even a secret driver for McLaren.One Twitter user commented “Love it! Darren Sainz just doesn’t have the same ring to it does it?”

However, Sainz has now revealed that the hilarious case of mistaken identity emerged from Stallard accidentally contacting the pit-to-car radio.

“Darren is my strategist back at the factory,” he explained, according to Motorsport. “I was starting a long run and Tom wanted to get the first feedback of tyres and how we were looking from Darren.

“He opened the radio saying 'Hi Darren, it is Tom!'. So I did a joke, 'Hi Tom, it is Darren!' but he immediately said sorry.

“I realised he had got it wrong but I wanted to actually have a conversation with him. It didn't happen though.”

The ‘Darren’ in question is race strategist Daren Stanley, who responded to the events on Twitter by saying “Oh the tainted joy of having my name spelt incorrectly by so many people!”

Stallard also tweeted that his colleague is “now almost famous”.

Sainz will be hoping to build upon his seventh-placed finish in Azerbaijan which earned his first points of the season and lines up in 12th on today’s grid.

Fans will be keeping an eye out to see if Daren himself can help lead him to a podium finish.