Photo: Dutch Photo Agency / Red Bull
Arvid Lindblad hoped for more from his 2025 Formula 2 campaign, even though he did enough to land a promotion to Formula 1.
This was just Lindblad’s third full year in single-seater racing, having stepped up from karting to Formula 4 after his 15th birthday in the middle of 2022.
Rather like his full campaigns in Italian F4 and FIA Formula 3, his F2 season with Campos Racing showed strong early promise. He won the sprint race at round three in Jeddah and triumphed in just his fifth feature race at Barcelona from pole position.
By this point he was third in the championship, just eight points from the lead and ahead of eventual champion Leonardo Fornaroli, but any thoughts of a title challenge would fade and he ended the year sixth in the standings after collecting a third win in the Abu Dhabi sprint race.
“Going into the year, I sort of set goals for myself,” said the 18-year-old, who will drive for Racing Bulls in F1 in 2026. “They weren’t really outcome goals though. I didn’t say I want to finish here in the championship or whatever, because it’s always very difficult to do beforehand.
“And also, in my circumstance, I came into this year having just done one year of F4, one year of F3. Three years ago, I was doing my last race in karting. So I’ve come through the ranks very quickly and I didn’t really set such goals going into the year. But I knew what was possible. Obviously the team did an amazing job with Isack [Hadjar] last year.
“Reflecting back, I’m not entirely happy with how the year has gone. I think there has been a lot of good moments, but I’m not super happy with how it’s gone. I’m very happy that I’ve got the opportunity next year, but, no I would have hoped that it had gone a little bit better.”
Asked where he felt his season had been hampered, he said: “The year was going really well up until Barcelona. We were fast throughout, but I was doing a few too many mistakes, there were some things out of our control, and there was a really nice sort of progression up to that point.
“And then sort of through the remainder of the European leg, we were just slow. We struggled for pace, there was mistakes on my side, and then also a bit on the team. But as a package we weren’t competitive. And there’s still question marks we have on that.
“There’s definitely things that I could have done better to help. But at the end of the day I’m just not happy that we weren’t more competitive for more of the season. I feel like too many times I’ve been competing on Saturday and not on Sunday.”