Arvid Lindblad has experienced a mixed rookie season in Formula 2. There have been high points, including a dominant weekend in Barcelona, but he has struggled to produce consistent results in the second half of the season. Ahead of the 12th round in Baku, Lindblad spoke to Feeder Series at a virtual media roundtable about his season so far. 

By Martin Lloyd 

Lindblad scored points in each of the 10 races between the Sakhir sprint in April and Barcelona feature race at the start of June, rising to a high of third in the standings after his win at the latter event.

Recently, the going has been tougher, with the 10 races since Barcelona producing just three points scores for the Briton. 

A low point came at the most recent round in Monza. In the feature race, he rear-ended Alex Dunne on the approach to Ascari, sending the Irishman spinning into retirement, and the resulting broken front wing meant he was powerless to avoid a collision with Roman Staněk at the safety car restart. He emerged from the round without a point and now lies seventh in the standings, 73 points behind championship leader Leonardo Fornaroli.

After a difficult middle period of the season, the non-score at Monza was likely the final blow to his championship challenge. 

“Looking back on the year, I’m really happy with how the first five, six rounds went. The progression, development and progress I made through them was really strong. Winning the race in Barcelona there was a really strong weekend,” Lindblad told Feeder Series.

“It was a bit confusing for me and the team, how we were really competitive at the beginning of the year and then we’ve struggled a bit more in the middle. It’s been up and down in the sense that for four rounds between Red Bull Ring and Budapest, we just weren’t that fast.”

In those four rounds, Lindblad only scored 13 points. On the other side of the garage, teammate Pepe Martí, currently sixth in the standings on 112 points, scored 48 points in that time, enjoying his best scoring period of the season.

A high point for Lindblad could have been the feature race in Spa, but he was disqualified from victory when his tyre pressures were found to be illegally low. Still, the Red Bull junior driver feels that his performance there was an illusion given the inclement weather in the Ardennes.

“In Spa, it was a shame we got disqualified, but again it was wet,” Lindblad added. “We just struggled for pace in the dry. The team worked really hard over the summer and I think we’ve found our form again. 

“We’ll see what it’s like this week. It’s a bit of a shame that we haven’t had the same consistency of speed throughout the year.”

Meanwhile, one team on the F2 grid is fielding an all-new line-up for the Baku weekend. Trident have replaced Sami Meguetounif and Max Esterson with F3 graduates Martinius Stenshorne and Laurens van Hoepen, who completed their second seasons in F3 at Monza with Hitech and ART Grand Prix respectively. 

“During the last few rounds of the F3 season, we thought it would be good to have some experience in the car and also to experience this track,” said Stenshorne, who finished fifth in the F3 standings this year. “So we went to Trident on the Monday and Tuesday after the Monza race weekend and did a couple of days on the sim.”

Leonardo Fornaroli leads the F2 standings heading into the Baku round, sitting on 174 points with three rounds remaining. The Invicta Racing driver has a healthy 21-point advantage over Luke Browning, who has 153 points after his maiden victory at Monza.

MP Motorsport’s Richard Verschoor lies third, nine points behind Browning on 144, while DAMS driver Jak Crawford is a further seven points back on 137. Rodin Motorsport’s Alex Dunne is fifth on 124 points after failing to score at Monza.

Invicta lead the teams’ championship with 255 points, 32 ahead of Hitech in second with 223. Former leaders Campos are third, 10 points behind on 213. 

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency