Fourth fastest, then into the wall
Arvid Lindblad crashed at Turn 13 in second practice at Madrid having just set the fourth-quickest time of the session. The impact caught the right-hand side of the car. He missed most of final practice and spent qualifying rebuilding something he had thrown away on Friday.
He still reached Q3. Tenth on the grid, a tenth Q3 appearance in 14 races, and no apology for the mistake that nearly cost him.
“I lost a lot of confidence, which is so important on a street track, missed basically all of FP3, and wasn’t happy in qualifying, but I managed to put a lap together and put it in Q3,” Lindblad told media including RacingNews365.
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“I am allowed to make mistakes”
The Briton pushed back on the idea that a rookie crash needs defending at all.
“It is something to learn from, and in the end, I am not going to beat myself up for crashing because it is something that is inevitable,” he said. “I’ve been so on the limit this year, I’ve been so fast, and it was my 10th Q3 appearance of the season. I am allowed to make mistakes, and I am going to learn from it.”
The record backs the confidence. Lindblad finished ninth in the Spanish Grand Prix for his ninth points finish of the year, and his eighth in the last nine races since a did-not-start in Canada. Sixth place in Monaco remains his best result of the campaign.
Bouncing back has become the pattern
He pointed to a season that keeps throwing problems at him and keeps getting the same response.
“I think it is good, and that I’ve shown again, and I’ve shown all year, that when things get difficult, I can still bounce back,” he said. “In Japan, there was an issue in Budapest and the same in Madrid, this time it was a bit more of my own fault, but I am happy with how we bounced back. It wasn’t easy.”
Racing Bulls arrive in Azerbaijan next weekend with a rookie who keeps finding Q3 and refuses to flinch about how he gets there.
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