RECAP: ARJUN MAINI’S 2018 SEASON

With the 2018 FIA F2 championship underway, seven rounds later, George Russel, driving for ART grand prix team leads the driver’s championship by 37 points followed by Lando Norris, Carlin Racing team. 

This year, Arjun Maini, the 21-year old Indian was announced as the lead development driver for Haas Racing from F1. From winning trophies for the ‘Best Rookie’ to multiple races and podiums under his name, Maini has done well enough to earn himself accolades and respect in Europe too. He is now, a step closer to his ultimate dream of racing in F1 after making his debut into F2 in 2018, signing up for the Italian team, Trident racing along with Santino Ferruci as team mate. Maini became the first Indian to score a podium and a win, in the GP3 Championship, held at Hungaroring, Germany and Catalunya, Spain, respectively.

For this season in F2, the organisers introduced a new package. This means that all the drivers and teams will race with the same chassis-engine-tyre package (Dallara-Mecachrome turbo V6-Pirelli) leaving driver skill and car setup to make all the difference in performance and not dictated by a superior operating budget.

At pre-season testing, Maini was one of the drivers to top the time sheets and showed good progress throughout the session. When the Main season kick started in Sakhir, Bahrain though, Maini finished his first race ever at 15^th and 14^th positions in the sprint and feature races respectively.

In the next race held at Baku, Maini ran at a high 4^th position in the feature race, before he had to retire after his pit stop and had to abandon his car at the end of the pit lane. He still managed to take a fantastic 5^th place in the sprint race and his performance was much appreciated throughout the paddock.

He faced disappointment again, when he had to retire the next feature race in Catalunya, Spain. In the sprint race, he only finished 13^th and ended the weekend on a disappointed note. Maini enjoyed finishing 5^th in both the races, held at Monaco, one of the toughest tracks to race at in the season.

The last three races though, have been frustrating for the young Indian as he faced a number of issues in the races and did not finish higher than 10^th.

At Paul-Richard France, Maini qualified 17^th and finished 10^th for the feature race and a distant 13^th for the Sprint race. In the Race, The Trident driver sounded like, he was on the verge of tears when he complained in the team radio over a lack of support and even cried saying, he doesn’t want to race in the championship anymore. Later, he revealed that the F2 championship organisers are killing the sport, due to the many technical issues the new 2018 car has suffered. He further mentioned that he was robbed of the straight line speed throughout the weekend due to the repeated melting pipe problem he faced in both the races.

“I think a few others had the same issues as me, and some engines are pulling like crazy.” “They say it’s a one-make championship. But, it’s not a one-make championship. It’s a joke, what’s going on in the championship right now. They are killing our careers like this, completely destroying them” He said in an interview for Motorsport.com.

Again, In the next Race at Spielberg, He qualified in 5^th and only finished 14^th after he got promoted one place in the feature race, and managed to complete the Sprint race in 10^th.

In this latest British Grand Prix at Silverstone, Maini showed incredible pace in the feature race, making a dramatic move for 6^th position on Lando Norris and even moving up to 2^nd place briefly, but he ran wide in the race and finished a low 14^th. In the sprint Race, he finished 13^th after a wheel-to-wheel battle with his team mate Santino Ferruci.

There was a controversial moment after the race, on the slow-down lap when Ferruci hit Maini. It was deemed to be intentional and he has therefore, fined more than $100,000, disqualified from the race and been banned for the next four races by the stewards for inexcusable poor sportsmanship.

Arjun Maini, after seven races currently stands 15^th in the driver’s championship standings with the next race scheduled on 28^th at Hungary.