New Red Bull driver option reaches key milestone after surprise FIA decision
Arvid Lindblad was behind the wheel of Racing Bulls' 2023 AT04 on Monday morning.
Red Bull junior driver Arvid Lindblad has completed his first full F1 test by driving an AlphaTauri chassis at Imola.
The British-Swedish driver took part in a filming day with Racing Bulls earlier this season, but enjoyed an unrestricted Testing of Previous Cars (TPC) outing at Imola on Monday.
Arvid Lindblad behind the wheel of AlphaTauri AT04
TPC events are essentially private test outings, available to Formula 1 teams to make up for the lack of testing time in the current cars.
To that end, TPC events must use cars at least two years old, which is why Lindblad was given the chance to get behind the wheel of the 2023 AT04, which Racing Bulls raced under their previous iteration as AlphaTauri.
Lindblad drove during the morning session at Imola, with the camouflage-liveried car then being handed over to fellow Red Bull junior Ayumu Iwasa for the afternoon.
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Lindblad was recently given an exemption to earn his FIA Super Licence before turning 18, having scored over the required 40-point threshold that the licence – which is mandatory for F1 drivers to have – demands.
Lindblad reached this threshold by way of his Formula Regional Oceania title win in New Zealand last winter, even before starting his current Formula 2 campaign.
He currently occupies third in the standings, behind championship leader Alex Dunne and second-placed Richard Verschoor.
It’s understood that the day of testing at Imola is intended merely as driver training for both Lindblad and Iwasa, but both remain possible contingency plans for the two Red Bull teams should another driver be required any time soon.
Max Verstappen, who is currently on 11 penalty points on his FIA Super Licence, is at high risk of picking up a mandatory race ban should he pick up a single penalty point this weekend in Austria and this risk only recedes slightly over the next nine rounds.
Verstappen’s penalty points tally will remain at nine until the Mexico City Grand Prix in October.
Should Verstappen, or any other of the Red Bull stable, be sidelined, it’s expected that Isack Hadjar or Liam Lawson would step up into any vacant Red Bull Racing seat, with Iwasa currently believed to be the more likely candidate for any Racing Bulls seat that thus requires backfilling.
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Lindblad’s securing of his FIA Super Licence also means that he becomes an option for Red Bull to use for any of their teams’ mandatory rookie FP1 appearances.
As of this season, every F1 team must slot in a junior driver (of two grands prix experience or fewer) into the F1 car of its two race drivers, twice for each car, meaning a total of four rookie outings in FP1 over the course of the year.
This means Red Bull thus needs to fill eight such outings across its two teams, with Iwasa having already driven the RB21 in place of Verstappen at this year’s Bahrain Grand Prix.
Isack Hadjar, as a rookie this season, technically fulfils two of the required outings for Racing Bulls, meaning the Faenza-based squad thus only needs two more over the course of this season; Lindblad thus being a likely candidate for these.
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