Jacques Villeneuve says Arvid Lindblad has already put Liam Lawson ‘to sleep’ in Racing Bulls battle

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Jacques Villeneuve has issued his verdict on the driver dynamics within the Racing Bulls camp, saying that Arvid Lindblad’s impressive rookie campaign so far has already put Liam Lawson ‘to sleep’.

Despite having never raced at the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve in the past, Arvid Lindblad performed beyond his years to score a spot in SQ3 and Q3 in both of the qualifying sessions this weekend.

During Saturday afternoon’s Sprint race, the 18-year-old thoroughly impressed on his way to a P8 finish behind Max Verstappen. It marked his first world championship point in the shorter format race, and equalled his best Grand Prix finish in the sport, too.

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The final classification from Grand Prix qualifying at the Canadian Grand Prix marked the second time that Lindblad has out-qualified his more experienced teammate in the format this year.

Liam Lawson still leads the head-to-head 3-2, but it is highly encouraging for the rookie driver. Following Friday’s result, the Briton leads the Sprint qualifying head-to-head 2-1.

• READ MORE: Ted Kravitz says Racing Bulls were ‘warned’ by the FIA about clutch issue on Liam Lawson’s F1 car

Jacques Villeneuve says Arvid Lindblad has put Liam Lawson ‘to sleep’ in VCARB head-to-head

In F1’s post-Sprint race show from inside the Canadian Grand Prix pit lane, former world champion Jacques Villeneuve outlined how impressed he has been by Lindblad’s rookie performances.

He told co-host and former rival, Juan Pablo Montoya, “Well, he’s come in with very low experience, but he’s put his teammate to sleep already.

“We hear about it, the team is focusing on him, and that’s already a good step when you get into F1. He seems to be very confident, and he seems to feel like he deserves to be there. He’s there for the long term, and he’s working on getting better.”

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Lawson’s future in F1 has been on rocky ground ever since he was demoted from Red Bull after just two rounds of racing last year.

He upped his performances in friendlier machinery at Racing Bulls, but was beaten by rookie teammate Isack Hadjar in the F1 standings.

The New Zealander currently holds an advantage over Lindblad in this year’s standings, but it remains to be seen how long he holds the bragging rights at the Faenza-based outfit.

• READ MORE: David Coulthard saw Liam Lawson ‘fighting for his career’ in Max Verstappen incident at Miami GP

Ruth Buscombe loved Racing Bulls’ strategy for Arvid Lindblad in Montreal Sprint

Former F1 strategist Ruth Buscombe was also on the panel during the post-Sprint show, and she detailed just how much she enjoyed Lindblad’s ‘risky’ move to utilise the hard tyres during the 23-lap race.

“Yeah, I liked it,” she said after being asked about the bold decision. “It was a bit risky. I mean, I think their forecast is saying it’s going to be wet tomorrow. Everyone’s only got two hards, and if it’s dry, you’d quite like to have those two hards available tomorrow.

“But they’ve gone, ‘It’s going to be duck weather tomorrow, so we’re going to use the hard today,’ and I really liked it. The hard is much better to push on and lean on. Degradation was about five hundredths a lap on the medium, really standard around here.

“Normally, we’re quite nice to the tyres in the race. You can’t do that in a sprint. So I think he did really well to kind of get extra pace by using that tyre advantage.”