Arvid Lindblad was left “extremely happy” after securing P9 in his first-ever F1 Qualifying session, with the rookie admitting that he “knew coming into the session that we were fast” as each Racing Bulls vehicles reached the high 10 in Australia.
After catching the eye with his efficiency throughout Friday’s operating at the Albert Park Circuit, Lindblad once more appeared in good type on Saturday and progressed by to the ultimate phase of Qualifying, the place he set the ninth-quickest lap simply behind staff mate Liam Lawson in eighth.
When it was put to him afterwards that he should be feeling ecstatic with how his debut Qualifying had gone, the Briton answered: “Yeah, it was actually good. I believe all weekend we’ve been fairly aggressive.
“I used to be making an attempt to not get too excited after yesterday, as a result of we didn’t know if issues were going to vary or if different groups had extra in the pocket or whatnot. But I type of knew coming into the session that we were quick, and I simply wanted to give attention to myself and do my job and we might be aggressive.
“The team have done a phenomenal job. It’s really impressive to have two cars in Q3, especially from where we were in Bahrain – I think it was much more than [mine] and the team’s expectations, so I’m extremely happy and just can’t wait for tomorrow.”
There was one dramatic second for Lindblad at the finish of Q2 when he encountered the slow-moving vehicles of Audi’s Gabriel Bortoleto and staff mate Lawson forward of him at the pit entry, Bortoleto having suffered a difficulty on his automotive that left him unable to take part in Q3.
“It was a bit scary,” the 18-year-old conceded. “I’ll review with the team, see if there was anything that I did wrong or something that was missing, but thankfully we got away with that unscathed.”
On the different aspect of the Racing Bulls storage, Lawson was equally happy with the consequence of Qualifying, which he admitted was maybe higher than what he and the staff had anticipated.
“I think honestly, where we thought we’d be this weekend was probably not here so, yeah, pretty happy with that,” the New Zealander defined.
“I believe the begin of Quali for me was fairly tough actually, so lastly type of pieced it collectively in the direction of the finish, however it was fairly difficult from the place I sat.
“It was truly exhausting to place a lap collectively – I saved locking up, making errors, and we had fairly a fast automotive so it was a bit of bit pointless, to be trustworthy, from my aspect, however in the direction of the finish it acquired extra collectively.
“We saved a brand new set [of tyres] for tomorrow as effectively, which is optimistic – we didn’t run a brand new set in Q3 as everyone else round us was already out.
“It’s nice to go into tomorrow with a brand new set of softs, and two vehicles in Q3 is actually very, very optimistic.
“So yeah, completely happy with the day – clearly tomorrow’s a protracted race, and these vehicles – thus far, after they’re new like this – aren’t at all times the most dependable, so we’ll see.”
