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# Scathing Lindblad self-criticism for 'trying to be too special'
- URL: https://www.the-race.com/formula-1/scathing-lindblad-self-criticism-for-trying-to-be-too-special/
- Published: 2026-09-25T14:41:02.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-25T14:58:45.000Z
- Description: F1 rookie Arvid Lindblad delivered a scathing self-assessment of his performance so far at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and will adjust his approach after “trying to be too special”
- Author: Scott Mitchell-Malm
- Tags: Formula 1, #arvid-lindblad, #racing-bulls, #azerbaijan-grand-prix, #primary_homepage_feature

Formula 1 rookie Arvid Lindblad delivered a scathing self-assessment of his performance so far at the Azerbaijan Grand Prix and will adjust his approach after “trying to be too special”.

The Baku weekend is proving arguably the toughest of Lindblad’s impressive first season in F1 as he crashed heavily in FP2 then made several mistakes in qualifying, which he ended slowest of the Q2 runners - his second-worst result of the year.

Lindblad said the Racing Bulls car has been “bad on the brakes” all through practice and qualifying and “just not been fun to drive” but said he shouldered responsibility for misjudging how aggressive to be in practice and shattering his own confidence.

His FP2 shunt, which was a result of taking too much speed into the narrow castle section and slamming heavily into the wall on the outside, came after crashing in second practice at the last race in Madrid too.

It has left Lindblad running a slightly older specification of parts compared to team-mate Liam Lawson, too, after Racing Bulls debuted a new front wing here.  
“I have no confidence, to be honest,” he said. 

“Crashing yesterday, it doesn't help. I'm running a different car to Liam - as you'd expect when you crash, so that doesn't help.

“I've missed mileage as well, I missed the start of FP1, start of FP2 and then I crashed, I missed basically all the rest of it.

“I need to...I think there's stuff for me to learn on how to approach these weekends and manage them in a little bit of a better way because it's been two street circuits now where I've crashed in FP2 and hurt my trajectory to qualifying.

“We were struggling this weekend so probably Q3 wasn't possible but I definitely think if I'd managed things a little bit better we could have been in a better place going into this session and maybe, with a little bit of magic on my side, could have been in Q3.”

Lindblad said that not pulling something out of the bag was “what annoys me” most. He has started inside the top 10 for nine of the 14 grands prix – including the last seven in a row.

“I'm just mad at myself because, more than anything, in trying to be too special I've hurt my trajectory for when it matters and I haven't delivered in the moment,” he said.

“I enjoy being able to sort of switch off the brain and just send it when it matters and just go and have a bit of fun with it but this week I haven't really been able to do that and I think I could have just managed things in a better way to do that.”

Lawson was only 12th fastest on a weaker weekend for Racing Bulls than the fifth-placed team in the championship has come to expect this year.

He put that down to lacking engine performance compared to other teams in the midfield - and said that is partly where being on a knife-edge on the brakes has come from.

“We're just trying to make up time that is not really there and it's really tough,” said Lawson.

“Overall, if I look at my last lap of quali, it was the best lap I've done and with the right tow it would have been enough to get through to Q3, but that's pretty much everything going perfectly to plan and on a track like this that's obviously not happening for everybody.

“We've definitely struggled all weekend, it's been tough, but I think it's similar to Monza. These tracks with these really long straights we suffer a little bit more now than we did before.”