With two podium finishes in a lightning start to the Formula 3 season, British teenager Arvid Lindblad’s full-throttle racing is propelling him towards fulfilling his lifelong dream of becoming a Formula 1 driver.
Since first stepping into a go-kart aged five, his goal has been to emulate Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton by winning the World Championship.
The 16-year-old won the opening sprint race of his first F3 season in Bahrain in February.
He is following Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc and former F1 world champion Jacques Villeneuve in driving for Italy’s Prema Racing, a team renowned for developing some of the best up-and-coming drivers.
Lindblad has already seen fellow young Briton Oliver Bearman make his debut for the Scuderia this season and knows this is his golden opportunity to stake a claim for a place on the F1 grid.
“I’d say I have two or three years now to make it and that’s my window – if I don’t make it now I won’t get another opportunity in Formula 1,” he told Game Changers for BBC Local Radio.
“All I’m thinking about at the moment is Formula 1 and wanting to be a world champion.”
‘It’s closer than it’s ever been for me’
Lindblad’s meteoric rise has seen him graduate from kart racing just 18 months ago to joining Prema and competing in Formula 4 last year – finishing fifth in the UAE championship and third in the Italian championship.
Competing in F3 and racing on the same weekends as his F1 idols for the first time this season, he had not even been to Bahrain and Australia or seen the circuits.
His goal had been to compete for podium places in the sprint races straight away and he did just that, winning in Bahrain before finishing second in Melbourne, while finishing eighth and 11th in the longer feature races at those circuits.
“It’s definitely a very big jump coming from F4, the level’s super high,” he said.
“I’m racing against drivers who are quite a lot older and have more experience. In the sessions we get pushed into the F1 pit lane, so we’re in the car sitting there in front of McLaren or Alpine, so it’s a realisation for me that it’s closer than it’s ever been for me.”
Lindblad owes a lot of his success to the support of his parents and people around him, such as Formula E’s Oliver Rowland, who was a young driver at Williams in the 2018 F1 season and first met Lindblad when he was six years old.
‘My dad’s phone rang and it was Dr Marko at Red Bull’
A defining moment in his early career would come in 2020 when he was just 13.
“I remember very vividly I was in the hotel having breakfast with my dad two weeks before the World Championship and his phone rang and it was [Red Bull team director] Dr [Helmut] Marko asking to have a sit down,” he said.
“And then we met him on the Sunday morning of the Portuguese Grand Prix, and he said he wanted me to join the [Red Bull junior] programme.
“I talk to him a lot at race weekends. He has given me a lot of advice and I know they’re happy with me at the moment.”
Lindblad grew up in Surrey and had his first experience of karting at Sandown Racecourse, in Esher, aged five.
His dad Stefan Lindblad’s family were keen motor racing fans, and he had grown up riding motocross.
Stefan bought his son a motocross bike when he was just three years old but it was not until he sat in a kart that his passion for racing would ignite.
Mum Anita Ahuja had reservations about the sport and wanted him to focus on his education at Royal Grammar School in Guildford, so Lindblad worked hard through the week to earn his time on the track.
‘F1 is the pinnacle of motorsport’
Lindblad also sacrificed much of his social life pursuing his dream, which impacted his relationships with fellow pupils.
“In the beginning I was maybe the weird kid that wasn’t there that much, even sometimes missing some Fridays [travelling to races], so it was maybe quite hard for my peers to understand,” he said.
“I would get almost picked on because of that, but as I’ve got older and some of my peers and those around me at school started to acknowledge I was maybe quite good, some of them have got behind me and now I almost have support from some of them.”
That support was evident during the recent sprint races when he received many messages of encouragement from schoolmates and even a couple of them watching him race.
Lindblad is now fully focused on repeating his early F3 sprint successes across the rest of the season, starting at Italy’s Imola track in May.
Current F1 drivers Leclerc, Esteban Ocon, Lance Stroll, Pierre Gasly, Logan Sargeant and Oscar Piastri have all raced for Prema, along with Ferrari and Haas reserve driver Bearman and Mercedes reserve Mick Schumacher – so could Lindblad join them soon?
“There hasn’t been any discussion of that at the moment, as far as I’m aware – I’m still very young and very inexperienced. I think it’s all going to be down to my results and if I continue to perform,” he said.
“From an early age it’s been all about Formula 1 – I’ve almost seen all other routes as a bit of a step down.
“F1 is the pinnacle of motorsport and I haven’t seen anything else that I’ve been attracted to.”
Listen to the full interview with Arvid Lindblad between 18:00 and 19:00 BST on Monday, 29 April on BBC Local Radio across the South East or on BBC Sounds.