'I'm proud of my heritage' - meet Britain's youngest F1 driver

Arvid Lindblad tells BBC Sport about being shaped by his Indian and Swedish heritage and how he was fixated on reaching F1 from aged five. 'I'm proud of my heritage' - meet Britain's youngest F1 driverImage source, PA MediaImage caption, Arvid Lindblad will be 18 years and seven months old on 8 March, the day of the Australian Grand Prix, making him the fourth youngest F1 driver in history - behind Max Verstappen, Lance Stroll and Kimi AntonelliByAndrew BensonF1 CorrespondentPublished10 minutes agoCommentsArvid Lindblad's eyes light up. The 18-year-old who is about to become Britain's youngest ever Formula 1 driver is sitting on a beach in Bahrain, a Gulf mist obscuring the still-rising sun, and he's pondering a question.He's been polite but wary so far. A five-minute drive from the circuit where he and his Racing Bulls team are completing their preparations for his grand prix debut in Australia at the beginning of March. On the cusp of achieving his lifetime's dream, understandably he wants to make sure he does not say anything he might regret.But when he's asked what has been the best thing that's happened to him since he became an F1 driver, the joy inside him bubbles to the surface, and he can't resist a little smile."Since becoming a Formula 1 driver… the best thing was just becoming a Formula 1 driver," he says.He learned about Red Bull's decision to promote him to their second team at last year's Qatar Grand Prix, where he was competing in the penultimate round of the Formula 2 championship.The news was broken by Red Bull's former motorsport adviser Helmut Marko, the veteran former F1 driver who had taken Lindblad into the company's driver programme at the age of 13 as a promising go-karter."This is something I've been doing with my dad," Lindblad says. "I got the news in Qatar when I was with him, so obviously that was a very special moment to share together."Does he still have to pinch himself to make sure it's real? Lindblad pauses. "A little bit," he says.Media caption, The ‘rare combination’ behind Britain’s newest F1 driverShaped by UK, Indian and Swedish heritageLindblad's graduation to F1 this year is breaking new ground for the sport.He is one of five British F1 drivers on the grid this year - six if you count Alex Albon, who was born and raised in the UK, but races under the Thai flag. He's also the first Briton with Indian heritage to race at the highest level of the sport.His father, Stefan, is Swedish. His mother, Anita, is of Indian descent. The partition of India in 1947 played a significant role in the family's history."My Nani, my grandmother, is Sikh, grandfather's Hindu," Lindblad says. "And when they were five, they were involved in the partition."They were in the part of Punjab that is now Pakistan, and they had to leave. They came from quite well-off backgrounds, but then they lost everything. So then they had to work very hard their whole life to recreate a life for themselves. Then they moved to the UK in their late 20s, early 30s, as doctors."His family background is, he acknowledges, "quite a rare combination, but I'm very proud of my heritage. All three parts have really shaped me to who I am today".He adds: "I've been very exposed to all three. Even though my grandparents moved to the UK when they had my mum, they're still very traditional Indians. I've been exposed to a lot of their cultures and rituals, the food, the prayer, all that sort of stuff, from an early age, as well as the Swedish. It's really shaped who I am today."Image source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Arvid Lindblad pictured with his dad, Stefan, and his mum, Anita, at the Autosport Awards in 2023Language skills have not passed down the generations as effectively as culture, though."I'm not the best at languages, to be honest. I can speak a little bit of Swedish and a few words of Hindi, but it's not great," Lindblad says."I couldn't do an interview in another language, so it's something I'm still working towards. I think it is important and it's also an element of respect, but I've got some work to do."The interest in motorsport came from his father's side of the family."My grandfather is a massive motorsports fan," Lindblad says. "He'll watch anything with wheels and an engine. He did a little bit of motocross with my dad when he was younger. Unfortunately, they couldn't do it for very long, but he passed that passion down to my dad, who passed it on to me."When I was three, my dad got me a motocross bike. To be honest, it didn't last very long. It was a bit too much for my mum to sit a little three-year-old on a motocross bike. So that died out quite quickly."But then when I was five I went karting for the first time and loved it from the beginning."But I'd say a big turning point for me that I remember very well was when I was about four. My dad was sitting on the sofa and had the F1 on and I came and sat down next to him and was watching the race