'The man of the future' Lindblad earns huge praise from Marko amid strong Silverstone FP1 debut

Expectations for what Arvid Lindblad could deliver in his first free practice session during an official race weekend were undeniably high—especially considering that Red Bull chose to have him debut alongside none other than Max Verstappen.

The young British talent did far from disappoint in front of his home fans. Despite driving a notoriously tricky and unbalanced RB21, Lindblad finished the session in 14th place—just half a second behind the four-time world champion.

This is an encouraging result, especially considering that the gap between Verstappen and Tsunoda has often been even wider this year.

The most important thing, of course, was to avoid any incidents and to bring the car back safely to the pits.

The British driver then handed the wheel back to Tsunoda for FP2, while Lindblad returned to Campos Racing for the F2 qualifying session, where he managed to secure only eleventh place.

Asked by the media, including GPBlog, to comment on the impressive performance of the 17-year-old British local hero, Helmut Marko had nothing but praise for him: ''Good. For his first outing he was professional. And also his comments were very good.''