Racing Bulls encouraged by huge Spa upgrades after Lindblad leads midfield in Belgian GP qualifying

Racing Bulls enjoyed one of their strongest qualifying performances of the season at the Belgian Grand Prix, with Arvid Lindblad leading the midfield in eighth place after the team's latest upgrades delivered an immediate boost in performance.

Lindblad reached Q3 for the sixth time this season and the third consecutive race weekend, finishing less than three tenths of a second away from fourth place. Team-mate Liam Lawson narrowly missed out on the top-10 shootout, qualifying 11th before grid penalties for Lando Norris and Isack Hadjar promoted him to ninth on the starting grid.

Lindblad praised Racing Bulls' latest upgrade package, saying it had transformed the car's competitiveness around Spa-Francorchamps.

"It's been a very positive Saturday, and it feels amazing to drive an F1 car on this incredible track," Lindblad said. "The team has done a brilliant job to produce a strong package this weekend as the car has been quick and the new upgrade is working really well."

The rookie admitted there was still a little more lap time available after making a small mistake at the final chicane.

"I lost a bit of time in the final chicane, so there's a small part of me that's disappointed with the little bit of lap time left on the table, however I'm overall happy to have had my best Quali result so far this season."

Lindblad also praised the factory for the progress Racing Bulls has made throughout the campaign.

"We're continuing to make progress as a team, and that's fantastic to see, so I want to say a huge thank you to everyone for working so hard to develop the car."

Although he expects Norris and Hadjar to recover through the field on Sunday, Lindblad remains focused on capitalising on every opportunity.

"We expect Lando and Isack to come through the field tomorrow, so we have to stay realistic; however, we'll remain focused to maximise every opportunity."

Lawson, meanwhile, felt he extracted the maximum from a package that lacked the latest upgrades fitted to Lindblad's car.

"We've been a little off the pace all weekend, which was somewhat expected with the package we have here," Lawson said.

"I felt like we put together a strong qualifying lap – the balance was in a good window, and I was happy with the car, but in the end we just didn't have enough to make it into Q3."

Despite narrowly missing out on the final qualifying segment, Lawson was encouraged by the team's development direction.

"That being said, the progress we've made as a team this season has been huge, and it's a credit to all the hard work everyone has put in. The upgrades on Arvid's car are clearly working well, which is really encouraging heading into next week when they'll be implemented on my car too."

Looking ahead to the race, Lawson believes Racing Bulls' traditionally strong race pace can once again help him move forward.

"Tomorrow is going to be a tough race, but our race pace has been strong throughout the season, so hopefully we can show that again and fight our way forward."

Head of Trackside Engineering Mattia Spini said Racing Bulls executed its qualifying strategy almost perfectly despite facing strong competition from the midfield.

"It was a strong qualifying result for the team, with Arvid taking P8 and Liam finishing just outside Q3," Spini said.

"We knew we had an opportunity today, but Audi and Alpine had shown good pace throughout Free Practice, so we had to focus on clean execution and extracting the most from every run."

Spini explained that the team deliberately sacrificed an extra set of soft tyres during FP3 to preserve race strategy options.

"In FP3, we used two sets of Soft tyres while saving an additional Hard set for the race. This meant we needed to deliver a strong first run in Q1, which both drivers did, allowing us to keep two new Soft sets available for Q2 and maximise our chances of reaching Q3."

While Lawson narrowly missed out by just 0.038 seconds, Lindblad continued to impress throughout qualifying.

"Unfortunately, Liam was not fully comfortable with the rear of the car, and his fastest lap in Q2 left him just 38 milliseconds short of a place in Q3."

"Arvid showed strong and consistent pace throughout Qualifying, finishing P8 ahead of our main competitors and less than three tenths from P4. That is an encouraging indication of the car's performance."

With Norris and Hadjar dropping back because of grid penalties, Racing Bulls will start seventh and ninth, putting both cars in a strong position to score valuable championship points.

"With grid penalties applied ahead of us, our drivers are set to start P7 and P9 tomorrow. We did not complete a proper long run in Free Practice, which makes race preparation more challenging than usual, but we are in a good position to fight for points."