Lindblad braced for "difficult" F1 rookie season with Racing Bulls

Arvid Lindblad is bracing for a tough Formula 1 debut in 2026, following advice from Racing Bulls team bosses Alan Permane and Peter Bayer.

Snapped up by Red Bull in his successful karting days back in January 2021, Lindblad has since ascended the single-seater pyramid swiftly, though he won just one championship: Formula Regional Oceania, formerly known as the Toyota Racing Series, last year.

A sole Formula 2 campaign, in which he took three victories in 23 races on his way to sixth in the championship, was enough to convince Red Bull to give him a chance at Racing Bulls alongside Liam Lawson – at the expense of Yuki Tsunoda, who has lost his place on the grid altogether after struggling to match Max Verstappen throughout 2025.

Lindblad will be the only rookie in the field as F1 moves to brand-new technical regulations on both the chassis and engine sides, and the 18-year-old Briton has been warned by Permane and Bayer that being competitive from the get-go would be a tall order.

“The advice [from them has been that] things are going to be difficult,” Lindblad told Formula1.com in Abu Dhabi. “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,” he added, with pre-season testing getting under way at the Catalan track from 26-30 January.

“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.”

Arvid Lindblad, Campos Racing

Photo by: James Sutton / Formula 1 / Formula Motorsport Ltd via Getty Images

What makes Lindblad confident is his trajectory in junior formulae, where he spent just three and a half years, taking fourth in F3 and sixth in F2 as a rookie.

He was the best debutant in the former, though he was beaten by fellow freshmen Leonardo Fornaroli, Luke Browning and Alex Dunne in F2 – but among those three, only Dunne had a similar level of (in)experience in single-seaters.

“I've come through the ranks pretty quickly,” Lindblad pointed out.

“I've just been in each category one year, so every year I'm used to being thrown in the deep end. For sure on that side it will help [adapt to F1] because I'm used to being in this situation.

“But on the other hand, I haven't done Formula 1 yet so I don't know what's coming. We need to see and I need to be open-minded and work hard, because this step will be the biggest one I've dealt with so far.”