Arvid Lindblad has revealed he would have ‘looked like a hero’ if the one-stop strategy had worked, but he still had ‘no regrets’ about the Formula 1 Hungarian GP.
Racing Bulls continued their impressive performance at the Hungarian GP.
After a solid qualifying, Arvid Lindblad lined up in P9 and Liam Lawson in P11. As both their drivers had a fair chance of scoring points, the team opted for split strategies.
The rookie took on the challenge of the bold one-stop strategy, while Lawson was on a classic two-stop.
While the hope was for Lindblad to be able to charge through the order and finish higher, the rookie had to settle for a P10 finish. Teammate Lawson was the one who lucked out with the strategy, taking a strong P8 finish.
‘No regrets’ about the one-stop
Lindblad had a poor launch off the line, which led to a messy start. From there on, the strategy could still have worked, however, with the rising track temperature and degrading tyres, he was unable to fight for more. The rookie tried to defend his position as much as possible, but in the end it did not hold.
Explaining his race, the Brit said: “It wasn’t a great lap one, so obviously I wasn’t the happiest with that, but I’ll look into it. Then from there, I think pace was quite similar. Maybe he [Lawson] was a tiny bit quicker.
“Then on the strategy, it was a bit of a shame the one-stop didn’t work, but I fully understand [the decision] from the team’s point of view.
“It was a big question mark going into the race. We saw Nico [Hulkenberg] trigger the two, and we decided to split the strategy with the cars, which makes sense, because if the hard hung on better, I would have looked like a hero being P8. Unfortunately, it didn’t, so Liam [Lawson] was the one who maximised.
“I think from the team’s point of view, it was the maximum that was possible today. So I don’t have any regrets about the one-stop not working, because it could’ve been the other way around quite easily.”
Even though the one-stop strategy was not as successful as intended, the Racing Bulls left the weekend with both drivers securing valuable points.
Two-stop strategy a ‘surprise’ to Lawson
Teammate Lawson had a better start than Lindblad, as he managed to push past the rookie and climb up to eighth. Later on in the race, the two-stop strategy appeared to be the way to go.
“We didn’t plan on two-stopping, so that was something that was a surprise,” Lawson said.
“I’d been managing the first part of that hard stint, and I could feel that there was something going on behind, because just the communication with with Alex [Iliopoulos – Lawson’s race engineer].
“He was mentioning the Audis, but not saying too much, and then out of nowhere it was “push, we need to box.” Obviously, a long stint on the soft at the end, but it was a great call from the team.”
The Kiwi driver ended up having to manage 27 laps on the soft tyres after pitting on Lap 43. Nico Hulkenberg had pitted slightly before Lawson, pulling the trigger and ultimately separating the two Racing Bulls.
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