Arvid Lindblad Defends Right to Make Mistakes After Spanish GP Crash, Still Qualifies 10th
Racing Bulls rookie Arvid Lindblad remained unapologetic after crashing out of FP2 at the Formula 1 Spanish Grand Prix, a mistake that forced a chassis change and limited his final practice running to just seven laps. Despite the setback, the Anglo-Swede recovered to qualify 10th, matching interim team-mate Yuki Tsunoda in Q1 before beating him by 0.9 seconds in Q2 to secure a Q3 berth.
Crash Cost Valuable Track Time but Not Confidence
Lindblad lost control of the VCARB 03 at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya’s Turn 13 left-hander, damaging the car’s right-hand side and ending his Friday programme early. The team elected to change the chassis, leaving the fourth-youngest driver in F1 history with minimal preparation before qualifying.
Asked if the incident dented his confidence, Lindblad explained: “The bigger thing was just that I didn’t drive in FP3, you know? If I had done all of FP3, I don’t think it really would have hurt me too much. But the reality was, I had the crash and then I only did two [flying] laps in FP3 and I didn’t really get a chance to get comfortable again. And that was the thing that hurt me.”
He added: “The reality is we missed – I don’t want to say ‘two sessions of learning’, but we weren’t comfortable making a change after FP2 because of the crash. Then we didn’t drive properly in FP3, so we didn’t want to make a change. So we basically only used FP1 for the set-up. I have the same set-up as what we decided after FP1. I definitely think that if I hadn’t had that crash yesterday, the trajectory to quali would have been very different and I would have been a lot happier.”
Rookie Accepts Errors as Part of Development Curve
Lindblad refuses to dwell on the shunt, framing it as an inevitable consequence of pushing to the limit. “It is what it is, it’s something to learn from,” he said. “I’m not going to beat myself up for crashing, because it’s something that’s inevitable. I’ve been so on the limit this year, I’ve been so fast. It’s my 10th Q3 of the season [excluding sprints]. I’m allowed to make mistakes. I’m going to learn from it.”
His consistency underscores that perspective. Lindblad has yet to retire from a grand prix (a clutch failure prevented his Montreal start), has scored points in seven of the last eight rounds, is on a nine-race Q3 streak, and has not been outqualified by a team-mate since the Silverstone sprint event.
Realistic Race Expectations After Surprise FP2 Pace
The 17-year-old topped the timesheets in FP2 with fourth place before his crash, but he downplayed that performance as a true indicator of race pace. “I wasn’t going to be P4 today,” he chuckled. “I mean, I can’t go one second quicker. The top teams obviously made a step. The reality is maybe our guys just did a better job with the starting set-up, so we started closer. So this is where we deserve to be. The reality is yesterday was something special. I think I was ahead of the curve, the team was also ahead of the curve. But there’s no hiding the fact that we’re not P4. So the reality is tomorrow we’re going to try to do the best we can. But P9, unless someone crashes, it’s the best that’s possible.”
