Red Bull's 'next Max Verstappen' gets off to a stunning start in F2 by topping the first pre-season test

Red Bull junior driver Arvid Lindblad, who is touted to be the 'next Max Verstappen', has made an impressive start to his F2 career by topping the timing sheets at the first pre-season test. The British driver has been part of the Austrian team's Academy for the last couple of years and has left an impression on the Red Bull hierarchy with his performances in his junior career.

After finishing P4 in his sole F3 season last year, the 17-year-old graduated to the F2 category for the 2025 season and will race with Campos Racing. In the first pre-season test in Barcelona, Lindblad topped the Day 1 timing charts by registering a time of 1:24:415 minutes which was just 0.88s faster than Gabriele Mini, who will race for Prema Racing.

The Brit's teammate at Campos Pepe Marti finished the day in P5 and over around three and a half tenths of a second slower than Lindblad.

Speaking to Formula 2's official website, the Red Bull junior reflected on his first outing in the F2 cars and said:

“Overall a pretty decent day. I think I have made a step forward from Abu Dhabi. I’m already feeling a bit more confident and comfortable in the car. Today's gone reasonably well, but there are still a lot of things I need to work on.

"It's testing, so I cannot get any sense of complacency, so I am going to be working really hard over the next two days to try to maximize the learning. We have two more days of testing, so we are going to really focus on that to try to put ourselves in a good position for Melbourne.”

Lindblad recently racked up enough points to get his FIA Superlicence points after winning the Formula Oceania Championships in New Zealand.

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Red Bull junior driver reflects on an intense pre-season ahead of his F2 campaign

Red Bull junior driver Arvid Lindblad stated that he was focused on getting used to an F2 car after having a short turnaround from racing in the Formula Oceania Championship last month.

As quoted by the aforementioned source, the Campos Racing driver said of the first impressions and said:

“I think quite a lot of it is getting used to the F2 car. So, driving the car, understanding the driving style and how to extract the most from it. Then there are all the new F2 things, compound changes, the pitstops, and then the warming up of the brakes.

"So just getting up to speed on the new F2 stuff but also working on the basics. It's going well so far I think, we are gelling quite well, but it's still early days. "

Red Bull will be closely monitoring Lindblad's progress in his rookie F2 campaign as he could be an option for them to race in the VCARB F1 team as early as this season.