Photo: Formula Motorsport Ltd
Red Bull junior Arvid Lindblad says winning his debut race in Formula 3 “gives me a lot of confidence” for the season ahead.
The youngest driver on the 2024 grid at 16 years old, Lindblad has stepped up to F3 from Formula 4 and charged from fifth on lap one to win the season-opening sprint race in Bahrain.
“Today’s victory gives me a lot of confidence,” he said when asked if the result gives him a boost. “It’s challenging, the level is really high and I’m quite inexperienced, so it’s not easy. But I feel like I’ve started doing quite well.
“Prema have been super supportive, helped me a lot with my transition so far. So I feel comfortable, I feel good to be in F3 and I’m happy to be here and can’t wait for the race tomorrow and for the season ahead.”
Lindblad was able to catch the duelling ART Grand Prix duo of Nikola Tsolov and Laurens van Hoepen in the second half of the race, and made quick work of passing them.
“I knew the tyres we have, there’s a lot of degradation here in Bahrain. So I knew it was going to be important to manage well, especially in the first few laps,” he said.
“I wasn’t too worried when they got away a little bit. I obviously didn’t want the gap to get too big because the DRS is so powerful, so I knew I needed to stay still close. The pace was strong throughout and then with the DRS train, it’s always hard to pass.
“To be honest, when I saw an opportunity I went for it. I think it definitely could have been better. There was a few times where I didn’t make the move stick and it was a bit messy, but I think in general it was a positive race.”
Lindblad said that realising he had won, and by such a large margin, was “really cool” but added: “I know there’s still a lot I can improve, a lot I need to work on, so we’re going to do our homework tonight, see if we can improve for tomorrow and try to take this momentum for the rest of the season.
“Today’s race is really positive. So for sure, it gives me hope for tomorrow. I know that it’ll be a lot more difficult tomorrow. I have all the really strong guys ahead of me. So we’ll see what happens, but definitely more optimistic going into tomorrow.”