EXCLUSIVE: This rookie told a world champion he'd be racing with him in five years. He did it in four

MELBOURNE: Arvid Lindblad was born in 2007, the same year Lewis Hamilton made his debut in Formula 1 with McLaren Mercedes.

Now as the youngster sits cool, calm and collected before his F1 debut in the RB around Melbourne - the timeline feels like a destiny fulfilled.

His composure sheds light on a now-legendary exchange from five years ago, where a 14-year-old Lindblad looked future world champion Lando Norris in the eye and told him to remember his name, because in five years he'd be sitting on the same Formula 1 grid with him.

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"Yeah, I mean, it's a funny story now. And it's come back round. I mean, to be honest, on that day, I remember very well," Lindblad said.

"I was with my friend. And we were walking. We saw Lando. And I said to him I was going to go up to him and say something. And he was kind of like, 'no, you haven't got the balls' kind of thing.

"So I went up to him. And it was the first thing that came out.

"'I want you to remember me, I'll see you in five years.'

"And I believed when I started this journey when I was five, I could be in Formula 1. I had that same belief when I was 14.

"Obviously, today it's very exciting and it's come true."

The confidence wasn't ego, but the deep seated conviction every driver who makes it into this elite sport has within them.

With only 22 names on the 2026 grid, Lindblad arrives as the youngest driver overall and the youngest British driver in the history of the sport.

While his promotion to RB happened with relatively little fanfare over the break, the significance of his arrival isn't lost on his peers.

"Lando's always been quite friendly. He sent me a message when the announcements came out, when that's what came out," he said.

"Obviously Lewis is the one that I looked up to when I was growing up. He was doing well when I was getting into the sport.

"I felt a bit of a connection to him because he was the only one of colour. And his rookie year was the year I was born.

"So, to share the track with him will be special."

Lindblad has long been aided by his mentor Oliver Rowland, a veteran driver with Formula E.

The two knew each other from when Lindblad was seven and now the British-Swedish driver is leaning on Rowland's energy conservation knowledge to learn "tricks" for the 2026 engines.

"Oli's like family, I've known him since I was seven," Lindblad said.

"We started a karting team together when I was nine. All the karting through Europe, he followed me, came to a few of the races and since in F3 and F2, he was really involved as well.

"Obviously because he does the Formula E and the way F1 is this year, that's a benefit.

"We can talk about the energy and driving around...finding tricks and stuff to get more performance, but I wouldn't even just focus on that, it's everything."

The jump from Formula 2 to the pinnacle of motorsport is a chasm that is difficult to quantify. Behind the RB garage, the scale of the operation is nearly 10 times larger than anything Lindblad experienced in the junior categories.

"I think F2 and F1 is really hard to compare in the sense of the team and the engineering just because in F2, there were five engineers," he said.

"In F1, there's 20 at the track (and) many, many more in the factory.

"It's a completely different ballgame. It's hard to compare. I've been trying to learn, trying to understand these new regs.

"And it's an evolution. It's something we'll be continuing to learn together through these first few races.

"There's still many question marks."

Formula 1 hits the track on Friday in Albert Park with FP1 starting at 12:30pm AEDT.