Why 'always special' Monaco will be the biggest test yet for rookie Lindblad

As the sole rookie in this year’s Formula 1 field, Arvid Lindblad has gone under the radar at Racing Bulls, but he’s been quietly getting on with the job and impressing some very experienced people in his team.

Montreal was perhaps the Briton's best and most convincing weekend so far in his short F1 career, even if he didn’t get to start the main race, and now he faces the biggest test for any newcomer – his first Monaco Grand Prix.

This hasn’t been an easy time to be a rookie. In addition to the obvious challenge of unfamiliar tracks Lindblad has faced a new car with new regulations, three Sprints in the first five races with limited practice, and big gaps in the calendar that made it hard to build up a rhythm.

Nevertheless he has caught the eye with some good performances, notably taking P8 on his debut in Australia, making SQ2 in China despite not doing any laps in FP1, and qualifying in the top 10 at Suzuka.

In Montreal, upgrades to the VCARB 03 worked well and, having earned P9 in Sprint Qualifying on a track he first sampled in FP1, he scored a point with a P8 finish. He backed that up with P9 in Qualifying for the Grand Prix, once again as best of the rest behind the drivers from the top four teams.

Unfortunately he was robbed of the chance to show what he could do when the clutch failed just before the start, triggering an abort. Instead his car was moved off the grid and the youngster had to watch from afar.

“There was an issue with the clutch after the formation lap, and obviously I only figured out when the lights started coming on, and it wouldn't go in gear," Lindblad explained. "So it was a bit sketchy. It is a bit upsetting, obviously, to not get the chance to participate today.”

Despite that disappointment he agreed that, overall, Canada had been positive.

“It's been a really good weekend,” he said. “It's just a bit sad not to get the reward for all the effort that I and the team put in.

"I think we did a pretty flawless job up to this point. We would have been quite solidly in the points, I think, if things had gone normally.”

Attention now turns to Monaco, traditionally the ultimate test for any rookie. An incident on your first visit is almost a rite of passage – Kimi Antonelli’s weekend for example was ruined when he clipped the barrier in Qualifying last year.

It’s also an opportunity to do something special, but the trick is to build up through the three practice sessions, and not try too hard to impress early on. Nowhere else is there such a fine line between hero and zero.

In F2 last year Lindblad qualified third in his group. He went on to finish P8 in the Sprint Race after receiving a penalty for a collision, and he then took P3 in the Feature Race, before a pit speeding penalty dropped him a couple of places.

He knows his way around the principality, but Monaco in an F1 car is something else entirely.

“I've enjoyed the street circuits so far this year – Melbourne, here [Montreal],” he said. “Monaco is the first proper street circuit. It's always special driving at Monaco, so to have my first experience of an F1 car there will be very cool. It's not too long of a break now, so I'm just looking forward to getting back in the car again.”

They are very different venues in terms of the overall layout, but if a car is good through Montreal’s chicanes and rides the kerbs and bumps well, it’s usually an encouraging sign for Monaco.

“Obviously it's hard to compare circuits," Lindblad added. "But for sure in the end, both these tracks are street circuits, both of them have kerbs, have low speed. I think it's always hard to know, but the updates worked really well here, there's similarities to Monaco, so hopefully we should be competitive there as well.”