“Rand, I want you to remember me, I’ll see you in five years.”
Those were the words of then-14-year-old British karting star Arvid Lindblad to Lando Norris as they shook hands in the paddock at Italy’s Adria Karting Raceway in 2021.
Norris was there to start his own karting team, but the cheeky Lindblad, who will step up from F2 to F1 with Racing Bulls in early 2026, decided to send him a message.
Lindblad, now 18, told Sky Sports: “It was just a spur-of-the-moment idea. I was talking to some mates at the track and I saw Lando.”
“I said to my friend, “I’m going to be racing him in F1 soon,” and he said, “You don’t have the courage to tell him,” so I wanted to prove him wrong!
“So I went to meet Lando in person and he responded very kindly. I said, ‘It was great to meet you and see you in five years.’ I was inspired by what Lewis Hamilton said to Ron Dennis[he would join McLaren]and it was just a friend of mine recruiting me because it was that same kind of vibe!”
“That was at the end of 2021, so I hope I can have a good year in F2 and keep my promise in F1!”
Lindblad is set to become a Racing Bulls F1 driver in 2026 (Credit: Red Bull Content Pool)
I watched Hamilton when I was a kid.
Lindblad first mentioned Hamilton in 1995. Hamilton, then 10, told Dennis, then McLaren team principal, at the Autosport Awards that he wanted to race his own F1 car one day.
While Lindblad first stepped into a go-kart at the age of five, Hamilton grew up watching F1, winning title after title with Mercedes.
“I remember a moment when I was four or five years old and Seb (Vettel) was winning, but I don’t remember that much,” he said.
“As you can imagine, Lewis started winning when I was seven or eight years old and that’s when I started to understand the sport a little bit better.
“I came into this world at a time when he was successful and he’s British and he’s also a person of colour, so I thought there might be some kind of cool connection because his rookie season in F1 was in 2007 and I was born in 2007. I always felt some kind of affinity for him.”
Lindblad is sixth in the F2 Drivers’ Championship ahead of this weekend’s final race in Abu Dhabi (Credit: Red Bull Content Pool)
Lindblad was born in Surrey to a Swedish father and an Indian mother. He has always raced under the British flag and had obvious talent from a young age.
Current Formula E champion Oliver Rowland has taken Lindblad under his tutelage and described the teenager as “special”.
“I first met Arvid in 2016 when I got a call from my old go-kart team, Zipkart, which was really important in my career,” Roland explained.
“They said, ‘Look, we’ve got this young kid, he’s got potential, he looks good.’ He was seven years old at the time. They asked me if I was interested in a little bit of coaching. I said, ‘Let’s come and see how he’s doing,’ because I was very busy at the time.
“I went to Wilton Mill, the karting venue, on his first day and saw him running around when he was seven years old and he was very impressive.
“What impressed me most was his maturity for his age. He was very interested in my racing, very interested in how I could go faster, and obviously he just lived and breathed the idea of being a racing driver, which was completely strange for such a young age.”
Lindblad shines in karting (Credit: Red Bull Content Pool)
The Rise of the Meteor Cart
At the time, Lindblad and his family weren’t happy with the kart setup, so Roland started a kart team just for Lindblad, Oliver Roland Motorsports.
Lindblad won the British Championship and immediately began competing at world karting level, competing for the title with drivers older than himself.
“From the beginning, it was always that I wanted to be in F1 and become world champion,” he said.
“When I was seven or eight years old, I wasn’t old enough to race, so I was always a young guy. I was racing in the 8-on-13 category, and there were moments when I was really fast, and there were times when I was as fast as the better guys.
Lindblad drove at Red Bull Showrun Houston in September 2024 (Credit: Red Bull Content Pool)
“So I got a little bit of confidence and when I was nine or 10 I went and fought for the British Championship and won the British Championship.
“Then I went to Europe and I was really good. I don’t think there was ever a moment where I thought, ‘Maybe I’m good enough.’ I just got a little bit more confident.”
“I wanted to win in everything I did, and I always wanted to get better and how can I improve. I think that was a big part of it. When I was racing, my dad said it’s much more important to focus on yourself and your growth, so I’ve had a lot of driver coaches and things like that really focus on me. The thing I’m always thinking about is, how can I get better?”
“Then I took things at my own pace, focused on every step of the ladder, and tried to do as good as possible.”
Become a Red Bull Junior
As is becoming increasingly common, those who shine in karting jump into F4 as soon as they turn 15. This is the minimum age to race those cars.
Lindblad did this and already had the backing of Red Bull, where he signed as a 13-year-old at the end of 2020.
“I was 13 years old at the time, so I don’t know every detail of what happened. I was focused on the result and performance, because that’s the most important thing in any sport,” he said.
“I remember very well that there was some communication between my father and some of the teams involved with Red Bull, but I don’t know the details.
“I remember very well being with my father in a hotel in Portimao, where we were testing for the World Championship (karting). One morning, we were just having breakfast there and my father’s phone was on the table and it rang.
“There was a number, and underneath it said ‘Graz, Austria.’ I didn’t really think about it. I was like, ‘Who is that?'” I didn’t really know about the controversy at the time.
“I remember seeing him pick up the phone and walk away with a little bit of a jump, so I knew something was going on.
“He came back and said Dr. Marco wanted to meet with us to discuss joining the program, and obviously I was thrilled about that.
“Then I ended up meeting him on the Sunday morning of the 2020 Portuguese Grand Prix, where he invited me to join the program and that’s how it started.”
Single seater rank up
Lindblad finished third in his first Italian F4 season in 2023, exceeding the expectations of himself and those who have been following his career.
He won the Macau F4 World Cup race at the end of the same year and stepped up to F3 in 2024. Although he didn’t win the championship, Lindblad’s outright speed and ability to adapt to faster cars surprised everyone.
At Silverstone he won both races and at one point was at the back of the field with an incredible performance in mixed conditions.
Lindblad showed off his talent during last year’s rainy Silverstone weekend in F3 (Credit: Red Bull Content Pool)
However, a bit of bad luck saw his championship challenge evaporate as he failed to score any points with six races left in the weekend.
Despite this, Lindblad impressed many, earned a call-up to F2, and endured a complicated season full of mistakes despite showing great speed.
He won the sprint in Saudi Arabia and turned pole position into a victory in Spain, but never really had a shot at the title. However, Red Bull impressed enough to give him the chance to step up to F1.
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Multiple crashes occur during F2 feature race, Arvid Lindblad defeats Alex Dunn, then Roman Stanek on restart
How Lindblad got his superlicense and impressed during F1 practice
Lindblad received a super license to drive in F1 after winning the Formula Regional Oceania Championship in early 2025.
Red Bull clearly see Lindblad as a potential future star and have a history of rapidly following drivers into F1, and this is the latest example of how they deal with young drivers.
He completed two private tests at Imola with the 2023 AlphaTauri earlier this year, before making his free practice debut with Red Bull at the British Grand Prix in July and the Mexico City Grand Prix in October, impressing on both occasions.
Arvid Lindblad was 6th in first practice of the Mexico City Grand Prix (Red Bull Content Pool)
His sixth place in Mexico was notable for being faster than Yuki Tsunoda, who used the same equipment, and the fastest of the nine rookies participating in the session.
“He was told, ‘Don’t do anything bad, don’t crash the car,'” Red Bull adviser Helmut Marko said.
“But he still delivered and was the fastest rookie. I have to say that his technical feedback was also impressive. So we are very happy with him.”
Red Bull team principal Laurent Mequise added: “I think he did a great job. It’s very difficult to step up in FP1. It’s completely different from the test day. We don’t have a lot of tires, we don’t have a lot of laps. I think he did a great job.”
“He did a very good job. You saw it yourself on the timesheet. He was very calm. He gave all the right feedback. He didn’t put his foot wrong. He didn’t break the car. To be honest, he impressed us in that FP1, there’s no doubt about that.”
Britain’s Arvid Lindblad will drive for Racing Bulls in 2026 (Credit: Red Bull Content Pool)
Will Lindblad become F1 champion?
It’s too early to ask this question, but Lindblad’s coach Roland was optimistic earlier this year that Britain has another big budding talent in motorsport.
“I rate Arvid at the highest level. Not only does he have the potential to become F1 world champion, he has everything you need,” he said.
“There’s still a long way to go until that point, so there’s a lot for him to learn and develop. F1 is sometimes not just about drivers, but I absolutely believe that he’s going to be a future world champion at this moment in time.”
The 2025 F1 season concludes with the title-deciding Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, which will be broadcast live on Sky Sports F1 from Friday. Stream Sky Sports now – cancel anytime with no contract
