Arvid Lindblad knows he has a lot on the table in his debut F1 season irrespective of the testing and simulator runs, while recalls the FP1 runs in 2025.
After multiple drivers made their F1 debut in 2025, Visa Cash App RB’s Lindblad will be the lone one in 2026 and his first season co-incides with the first of the new era. The workload for the Brit is double this year, as he not only has to get on the grips with the racing, but also the whole system.
He had FP1 outings in 2025 and also TPC running, but nothing comes close to actual race weekends and situations, when the learning is highest, as last year’s rookies saw for themselves. “Silverstone was very special for me being my first time driving FP1 and obviously doing it at home as well,” said Lindblad to official F1 website in an interview.
“It was challenging because I was racing in F2 at the same time so I couldn’t put all my focus on the F1 because I had to perform well in F2 that weekend. But in Mexico on that side, it was a bit easier. There were no other commitments that I had. So, I was just focused on doing the best a job I could, which definitely helped. It still wasn’t easy.
“Obviously with the situation, the championship, it was a lot of pressure to sort of not make any mistakes, but I was very, very happy with how both FP1s went, but especially Mexico,” summed up Lindblad, who also featured in the post-season test in Abu Dhabi. From then, the upcoming Barcelona test will be his first proper F1 off-season run to get used to the environment.
He has much to get under his head and be ready for the big challenge in the first few F1 races. His Visa Cash App RB team bosses Alan Permane and Peter Bayer have been realistic to him about the difficulty as well and he is aware of the challenges himself, which is why he is going into the season with an open-mind and not expecting miracles straight up.
“There’s a lot of things I need to work on to get up to speed,” continued Lindblad. “Going into Formula 1, there’s going to be a lot of changes – not just from F2, but even more on top of that, because of the big regulation change next year, there’ll be even more things to go through. So, I’ve got a lot of work with the team at the factory, on the sim and doing everything we can to try to get me up to speed because those tests will be really important, in 2026, even more so because the power unit is going to be a much bigger thing.
“There’s going to be much more emphasis on that whilst driving. So, I think just really trying to get comfortable knowing what I have to do, what was required from me and to be able to sort of be comfortable to do it all. There’s going to be a lot of things I’m going to have to think about whilst driving, so to try to sort of get up to speed on that and be comfortable doing it will be good.
“The advice from Alan and Peter is that, things are going to be difficult. I shouldn’t be naive. I’m very aware of the fact that it will be a big challenge. It will be a really big step up. There’s a lot of work I have to do over the next coming months prior to Barcelona [host of private testing to kick off pre-season]. But even then, during all the tests, during the first part of the season, there’s going to be a lot of things for me to be learning up to speed on.
“Even also on the team side, there will be that as well, because it’s going to be so much that is new. We’re all going to have to learn and develop together. It’s just about being open-minded. It’s nothing I already don’t know that I need to just work hard and keep focused on myself,” summed up Lindblad.
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