The ‘swap’ in China
Unlike the Melbourne weekend, which ended with the points finish of the young rookie Arvid Lindblad, the Chinese Grand Prix concluded with a negative result for the Briton, in a race that, on the contrary, gave the first points of the season to his teammate Liam Lawson.
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The Safety Car
An unexpected final 7° place finish for the New Zealander from Racing Bulls, who started from 14a position on the grid and was betrayed by the Safety Car entering the track one lap after his pit stop. Despite this, the former Red Bull driver managed to maintain a pace above expectations, thus obtaining an important points finish for himself and the Faenza-based team: “I’m really happy with today’s result. To be honest, we didn’t expect it, but our pace was strong towards the end – he admitted – the Safety Car came out at an inopportune moment and at that point I thought our race might be over. Instead, it was a really fun race and we managed to make some overtakes. Finishing in seventh place is a fantastic feeling. Kudos to the team for the strategy, we did everything right this weekend and scoring two points shows how well we worked. We will continue to work hard to find a bit more speed for next week and for the upcoming races, and hopefully we can fight even higher up the grid.”
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Safety Car that ruined Lindblad’s strategy, in the weekend where the Briton also competed in his first F1 Sprint. Starting on hard tires, the race neutralization came too early to switch to mediums, thus remaining on track. Despite finishing close to the points, the race ended in 12° place: “It wasn’t the easiest weekend for us. I had a good start and the race was going well until the Safety Car came out. Unfortunately, it wasn’t the ideal time for our strategy, because it was too early to fit the medium tires, so we were forced to stay on track with the hard tires. It was a different weekend compared to Melbourne. It was structured differently, as it was a Sprint race on a new track for me, and with only a few laps completed during practice. There are definitely lessons I can take with me, as well as things I can improve and analyze together with the team before going to Japan.”
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