Photo: Red Bull
Red Bull Racing has announced it will hand Arvid Lindblad a second Formula 1 free practice outing at this weekend’s Mexico City Grand Prix.
The team handed Lindblad his F1 practice debut at the British Grand Prix in July, when he took over Yuki Tsunoda’s car. This time he will be in the Red Bull RB21 usually driven by Max Verstappen in FP1 on Friday afternoon.
Lindblad became a Red Bull Junior Team-supported driver at the start of 2021, a status he held through the last one-and-a-half years of his karting career before becoming a proper Red Bull junior when he switched to single-seaters in mid-2022.
The following year he came third in the Italian Formula 4 championship and won the Macau Grand Prix’s F4 support races, was in 2024 was 13th in Formula Regional Middle East then made another step up the ladder to FIA Formula 3 where he came fourth in the championship with four victories. Red Bull then immediately began preparing Lindblad for F1.
His first mileage in older machinery came in a 2024 demo on a stretch of an old IndyCar circuit, and he revealed to Formula Scout he drove in the testing of previous car (TPC) programme for an unnamed F1 team (believed to be be the Red Bull-owned Racing Bulls) in early 2025.
Lindblad made another TPC outing in June, driving at Imola with Red Bull Racing to prepare for his F1 practice debut.
Another key part of Red Bull’s plan was to provide further opportunies for Lindblad to secure FIA superlicence points, which led to him racing in FRegional Oceania at the start of 2025. He romped to the title with six victories.
That put Lindblad above the 40-point tally he needed before even making his step up to Formula 2. But as Red Bull wanted the freedom to call him up to race in F1 mid-season, it lobbied the FIA to make an exemption for his superlicence to be granted before he reached the minimum age of 18 years old in August.
During a meeting of its World Motor Sport Council in June, that request was approved and special dispensation was made for the Anglo-Swede.
Lindblad has continued to impress in junior single-seaters, and currently sits seventh in the standings with two rounds left of his rookie F2 season. He won from pole in the Barcelona feature race, won the Jeddah sprint race and has two other podiums so far.