‘Switch off the brain, hope for the best and send it’ – Lindblad outlines his bold approach to Q3 appearance in Japan

Arvid Lindblad revealed that he went into Qualifying in Japan with the brave attitude of “switch off the brain, hope for the best and send it”, which ultimately earned him a spot in the top 10 at the expense of Red Bull's Max Verstappen.

The Racing Bulls rookie had far from an ideal start to the weekend at the Suzuka Circuit as he missed out on practically all of FP2 due to a gearbox issue, leaving him with plenty to catch up with on a track that did not feature in his junior career.

Lindblad also didn’t complete as many laps as he wanted in the final hour of practice, but the setbacks proved to have little impact on his performance in Qualifying as he managed to knock Verstappen out with his final effort in Q2.

Speaking to Sky Sports F1 after securing his P10 result in Qualifying, he said: “To be honest, it’s not been an easy week so far – I missed all of FP2, I missed a good chunk of FP3 as well with some issues, so I had reasonably low expectations coming into the session. We were even just talking about getting out of Q1.

“I’m super happy and super grateful to the team for the job they’ve done to help give me a car that I had confidence in. It's not an easy track to come to as a rookie, especially when you miss mileage.

“It’s a confidence track, so to be able to miss a lot of laps and still get straight up to the limit is in big part thanks to them.

“I’m also going to be honest, I’m very proud of myself. I think the job I did in Q2 was pretty impressive. I had a lot of fun on that lap. I knew after Run 1 that if I did a perfect job, I might be able to just squeeze through.

“I told myself I’m just going to switch off the brain, hope for the best and send it. It was such an exhilarating feeling as well on a track like this where you’re just at one with the car – it was so much fun.”

The result is a welcome return to form for the Racing Bulls driver as, after a brilliant performance on his debut saw him score points in Australia, he struggled at the Chinese Grand Prix and a spin prevented him from finishing higher than P12.

However, demoting Verstappen, who is a four-time polesitter in Japan, to 11th place in Qualifying was still somewhat unexpected. The Dutchman later admitted that Red Bull have so far been unable to fix their balance problems, which played a role in Lindblad outqualifying him by 0.153s on merit.

“I’ve watched so many of these sessions on the TV, dreaming of having that opportunity to just do one lap and send it without any fear,” Lindblad explained to F1 media. “If it’s in the fence, it’s in the fence, but I knew that if I did everything perfectly, Q3 was on the cards.”

He also conceded that there were still improvements left on the table, telling Sky Sports F1 that he “could have done a bit of a better job in Q3”.

“I don’t think I nailed that,” the Racing Bulls driver said. “I got a bit too happy, I think, and needed to stay a bit more focused, but in the end it’s my third race. There’s a lot you learn with these sorts of things. I was just happy to get into Q3 because I’m not sure we entirely belong there.”