‘No sense of complacency’ for Lindblad after finishing fastest on day one of testing

24 February 2025

Arvid Lindblad made an impressive start to life as a Campos Racing driver, ending the opening day of Barcelona pre-season testing at the top of the timesheets.

The 17-year-old, alongside several other drivers, strapped a set of the Soft tyres on late in the day, before completing a 1:24.415 to put him up to P1.

While many tried to beat his benchmark lap, Lindblad’s time remained untouched with PREMA Racing’s Gabriele Minì going closest, 0.088s behind.

Speaking straight after jumping out of his car, a pleased Lindblad said: “Overall a pretty decent day. I think I have made a step forward from Abu Dhabi. I’m already feeling a bit more confident and comfortable in the car.

“Today's gone reasonably well, but there's still a lot of things I need to work on. It's testing, so I cannot get any sense of complacency, so I am going to be working really hard over the next two days to try to maximise the learning.

“We have two more days of testing, so we are going to really focus on that to try to put ourselves in a good position for Melbourne.”

Lindblad set the fastest time on Day 1 of pre-season testing in Barcelona

Talking through the day’s run plan, Lindblad revealed that while he and Campos had been testing things on the car, his main focus was around improving his driving.

When asked what specifically he had been working on, the Briton replied: “I think quite a lot of it is getting used to the F2 car. So, driving the car, understanding the driving style and how to extract the most from it.

“Then there is all the new F2 things, compound changes, the pitstops, and then the warming up of the brakes. So just getting up to speed on the new F2 stuff but also working on the basics.”

It has been a busy winter for Lindblad, who after finishing up at the Abu Dhabi post-season test, went to New Zealand and won the Formula Regional Oceania Championship.

He admits this did not leave a lot of time for preparation with Campos, but in their limited spell together, the Red Bull Junior Team prospect is already happy with how things are going.

“It's going well so far,” he said. “I think we are gelling quite well, but it's still early days. There’s a lot more to come on that side, just from a communication point of view and gelling.

Lindblad is focused on maximising his next two days on track before Round 1 in Melbourne

“We are all quite new with each other, but we are working hard on both sides, so I am happy and confident.”

Weather played a big role on Day 1, with heavy fog delaying the start to proceedings, although Lindblad says that did not alter their run plan, or the track, that much.

However, the expected rain on Day 3 played a role in their decision to burn through a set of Soft tyres late in the day. Looking ahead to the rest of the test, Lindblad sees both the positive and negatives in the changeable weather conditions.

“We don't get many days of testing, so I am just trying to focus on doing as good a job as possible,” he said. But then there's a bit of expected rain on Wednesday, so we put a Soft on at the end.

“Day three having a high chance of being wet is a positive and negative. Obviously, it gives me a chance to drive these tyres in the wet which is great preparation for the season, but then it's one day less of proper testing.

“So, we need to be on top of it tomorrow, so we can get through our run plan, and then try to maximise day three on my side.”