17-year-old Brit Lindblad – a member of the Red Bull Junior Team since 2021 – could be a new name on the Formula 1 grid in the near future, Red Bull driver programme boss Helmut Marko having identified him as their potential “new champion”.
And that opening could come at Red Bull’s second team VCARB, with Red Bull team principal Christian Horner having hinted that Yuki Tsunoda will contest his fifth and final season with that team in F1 2025.
Of course, Lindblad has plenty of work to do in the year ahead to secure such an opportunity, but made the perfect start by romping to the Formula Regional Oceania title, bagging him his FIA Superlicence. A Formula 2 campaign with Campos now awaits.
And as the prospect of a future Formula 1 drive starts to come into view, Lindblad is closing in on honouring a statement which he made to McLaren’s Lando Norris.
A YouTube video has resurfaced which showed a 14-year-old Lindblad approach Norris and put him on notice about his F1 destiny.
“Hello Lando, I want you to remember me,” Lindblad begins. “I’ll see you in five years.”
Skip forward to the present and in an appearance on the Inside Line F1 podcast, Lindblad explained where he got the inspiration from to approach Norris and make that declaration.
As it turns out, he was following the Lewis Hamilton blueprint, his compatriot having famously approached then McLaren chief Ron Dennis at an awards ceremony to tell him that “one day I want to be Formula 1 World Champion in your car”, Hamilton there by virtue of his British Karting Championship title win.
Hamilton would indeed become a McLaren F1 driver in 2007, winning the first of his seven World Championships the following year.
“I was just walking in the paddock, and he [Norris] was there that day because he launched his go-kart and just felt like it,” Lindblad explained.
“I remember the story of Hamilton when he saw Ron Dennis for the first time and said, ‘I’ll drive one of your cars one day,’ and I just thought, ‘Why not?
Just tell him I’ll be driving against him in a few years time.’ So it was a spur-of-the-moment thing and just said it with full confidence.”
