‘I’m mad at myself’ – Lindblad shares frustration after ‘trying to be too special’ at recent events

Arvid Lindblad offered a particularly critical assessment of his individual performance after Qualifying at the Baku City Circuit, suggesting that he has recently “been trying to be too special”.

Lindblad put himself on the back foot when he crashed out of Thursday’s second practice session in Azerbaijan – marking consecutive FP2 incidents following his heavy shunt at the previous round in Madrid.

Beyond that, the Racing Bulls rookie has struggled with his brakes all weekend, and he ultimately had no answer to returning team mate Liam Lawson’s pace through Qualifying – the pair winding up 15th and 12th respectively.

Asked how he has been feeling behind the wheel, and whether his car has been particularly sensitive to Baku’s notorious gusts of wind, Lindblad said: “No, it’s just been bad on the brakes. It’s not even the wind, it’s just not been fun to drive.

“It’s been very difficult on the brakes in general. Every lap, every corner’s a different problem, and it’s just very difficult to build on a track like this where so much of your lap time is on braking, and there are walls, so there’s not really much margin for error.

“It is what it is. I’m a bit frustrated, more at myself than anything, just because I feel that I didn’t do something special like I normally do at the end of these Qualifyings, to put us in the final part. More than the actual end result, that’s what annoys me, but it is what it is.”

He continued: “I just have no confidence, to be honest. Obviously after crashing yesterday, that doesn’t help. I’m running a different car to Liam – as you’d expect when you crash – so it doesn’t help that we’re not on the same stuff.

“I’ve missed mileage as well. I missed the start of FP1, missed a bit of the beginning of FP2, and then I crashed and I missed basically all the rest of it.

“I think there’s stuff for me to learn on how to approach these weekends and manage them in a little bit of a better way, because it’s been two street circuits now where I’ve crashed in FP2 and hurt my trajectory into Qualifying.

“We were struggling this weekend so probably Q3 wasn’t possible, but I definitely think if I had managed things better, we could’ve been in a better place coming into this session. Maybe with a little bit of magic from my side, we could’ve been in Q3.”

Lindblad went on to explain how he plans to pick himself up ahead of Saturday’s 51-lap race – and the final rounds of his rookie season after that.

“I’m not going to get in my own head,” he said. “I’ll be fine next week – there’s no problem about that. I enjoy doing things that are a bit different.

“I enjoy the fact that I’ve been in Q3 almost every weekend of the last 10 or whatever. I’m just mad at myself because more than anything. I’ve been trying to be too special. I’ve hurt my trajectory for when it matters, and I haven’t delivered in the moment.

“I enjoy being able to sort of switch off the brain, just send it when it matters, and go and have a bit of fun with it, but this week I haven’t really been able to do that. I think I could’ve just managed things in a better way to do that.

“In the end, it’s all learning. There are many things that I’m going to learn always. It was my first time here. I’m just focused on what I can do better, and then crack on with it and try to do a better job.”