{"id":570455,"date":"2026-03-28T18:07:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T18:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/570455\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T18:07:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T18:07:13","slug":"switch-off-the-brain-hope-for-the-best-and-send-it-arvid-lindblad-outlines-his-bold-approach-to-q3-appearance-in-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/570455\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Switch off the brain, hope for the best and send it\u2019 \u2013 Arvid Lindblad outlines his bold approach to Q3 appearance in Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arvid Lindblad revealed that he went into Qualifying in Japan with the brave attitude of \u201cswitch off the brain, hope for the best and send it\u201d, which ultimately earned him a spot in the top 10 at the expense of Red Bull’s Max Verstappen.<\/p>\n

The Racing Bulls rookie had far from an ideal start to the weekend at the Suzuka Circuit<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

Lindblad<\/a> also didn\u2019t 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<\/a> out with his final effort in Q2.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Sky Sports F1 after securing his P10 result in Qualifying, he said: \u201cTo be honest, it\u2019s not been an easy week so far \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m super happy and super grateful to the team for the job they\u2019ve 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m also going to be honest, I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI told myself I\u2019m 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\u2019re just at one with the car \u2013 it was so much fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result is a welcome return to form for the Racing Bulls<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

However, demoting Verstappen, who is a four-time polesitter in Japan, to 11th place in Qualifying was still somewhat unexpected. The Dutchman later admitted<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve 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,\u201d Lindblad explained to F1 media. \u201cIf it\u2019s in the fence, it\u2019s in the fence, but I knew that if I did everything perfectly, Q3 was on the cards.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also conceded that there were still improvements left on the table, telling Sky Sports F1 that he \u201ccould have done a bit of a better job in Q3\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I nailed that,\u201d the Racing Bulls driver said. \u201cI got a bit too happy, I think, and needed to stay a bit more focused, but in the end it\u2019s my third race. There\u2019s a lot you learn with these sorts of things. I was just happy to get into Q3 because I\u2019m not sure we entirely belong there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arvid Lindblad revealed that he went into Qualifying in Japan with the brave attitude of \u201cswitch off the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573],"tags":[64,63,817,813,816,85],"class_list":["post-570455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-formula-1","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-f1","tag-formula-1","tag-formula1","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}