F2 Spanish Grand Prix: Indian racer Kush Maini finishes second in sprint race
Indian racer driver Kush Maini returned back to F2 Spanish Grand Prix, and enjoyed a good weekend in Barceklona, as he grabbed the second spot in the sprint race on Saturday.
He returned to the track fresh off his first F1 test session with Alpine at the Red Bull Ring in Austria.
Maini, who drives for Invicta Racing, suffered a wheelspin off the start with Victor Martins of BWT Alpine taking poll on the first corner.
With Ritomo Miyata sweeping around the outside at turn 1 to go from fourth to second, ahead of Juan Manuel Correa and Maini, the Indian dropped from first to the fourth position.
On lap 2, Maini made a late move to steal a position from Correa with teammate Gabriel Bortoleto, following him to secure the fourth place.
By Lap 10, Martins was able to escape from the DRS range of Miyata and led by 1.5s, while the Japanese driver held a 1.1s advantage over Maini in the podium places.
With 10 laps to go for the session to close, it seemed that the track limits became a problem for Miyata; with the driver being assigned a five-second time penalty for one too many breaches.
He earned a second time penalty in his struggle to remain ahead of Maini to bring that total up to 10-seconds with five laps remaining.
Moving into the final round, Martins finished on top of the podium with Maini moving up to second and Correa, third with Miyata’s time penalties.
The Indian, however, finished sixth in the main race.