the only rookie on the 2026 grid is arvid lindblad
the youngest driver in F1 is an 18-year-old at racing bulls who scored on his debut, and this weekend is his team's home race in austria.
quick quiz: who is the only rookie on the 2026 grid? if you said kimi antonelli, no. he’s 19, but this is his second season, and he’s busy leading the championship. the answer is arvid lindblad, who is 18 and drives for racing bulls.
last year we had a whole class of rookies (antonelli, hadjar, bearman, bortoleto). this year there’s exactly one, and the seat only opened up because isack hadjar was promoted to red bull to sit next to max verstappen. lindblad started racing single-seaters in 2022. he did one year of F3, one year of F2, and now he’s here.
so how’s it going? better than you’d think. he qualified P9 and finished P8 in australia, which made him britain’s youngest ever points scorer and the third-youngest in F1 history. he picked up a point in the canada sprint, then couldn’t start the race because of a gearbox problem. in barcelona he finished P9.
monaco is my favourite one. he started P15, stayed out, and was driving around in no man’s land when charles leclerc crashed and brought out a red flag with ten laps to go. that meant a free tyre change, and he ended up classified P7, right behind his teammate liam lawson. he admitted afterwards that they got very lucky with the timing. at least he’s honest.
that’s 13 points, which puts him 13th in the standings. lawson has 28 and has outqualified him five times out of seven, so nobody is calling him the next verstappen yet. but he’s 18 and scoring points in a midfield car. given what the red bull programme usually does to its juniors (ask lawson, who lasted two races at red bull last year), that counts as thriving.
which brings us to this weekend. the travelling circus of formula one heads to austria, to a track red bull owns, and the senior team is turning up without a win. verstappen is seventh in the championship. the most cheerful story in the whole red bull family right now is the teenager in the junior team.
my prediction for sunday: lindblad outqualifies lawson, scores again, and somebody on the broadcast calls antonelli a rookie anyway. see you after the race.