Motorsport weekend wrap: India’s Kush Maini, Atiqa Mir, Akshay Bohra star with victories

This weekend (July 20-21), IndyCar’s Colton Herta made history in Toronto after completing the first-ever weekend sweep. Indian drivers made a mark as Akshay Bohra secured his maiden Italian F4 win, Atiqa Mir became the first-ever female driver to win at Rotax Challenge and Kush Maini took his maiden F2 victory.

Pascal Wehrlein secured his first Formula E title in a thrilling final race. 

IndyCar: Herta returns to podium after two years, completes first-ever weekend sweep

Colton Herta returned to the IndyCar podium after a two-year gap to win on the streets of Toronto. It was Herta’s weekend to take control as he led every session, posting the fastest times in both practices, qualifying and Sunday’s warmup and completing the first-ever weekend sweep in IndyCar history. 

The Andretti Global driver started from pole in a race with incidents from the first lap, including a 20-minute red flag delay. The last of the restarts happened with five laps to go which saw Herta make no mistake and claim his first victory since May 2022, 41 races ago.

The 24-year-old secured his eighth career victory after leading 81 of 85 laps. He beat his teammate Kyle Kirkwood to the finish line with Storm Dixon, who started from 15th, finding his way through the pack to finish third. 

NASCAR: Larson takes anti-climatic win at Indianapolis 500

Kyle Larson persevered in the drama-filled Brickyard 400 race and managed to have an incident-less drive to take his fourth win of the season. It was an anti-climactic victory for the Hendrick Motorsport driver as he crossed the finish line under caution. 

The race featured two overtimes and a 17-minute red flag delay due to a multi-car crash in the middle. Larson, who started from fifth, was one of the few cars to stay on a safer fuel strategy which helped him grab the race lead at the start of the first overtime. 

Larson overtook Ryan Blaney at a crucial moment in the race and the latter was unable to steal the lead back due to the caution on the final lap. With this win, Larson maintains his position at the top of the table with 747 points. 

Atiqa Mir becomes first female racer to win at Rotax Challenge 

Atiqa Mir, the nine-year-old racing prodigy from Kashmir, created history at the Le Mans Kart International circuit, by becoming the first-ever female racer to win the Challenge International Trophy. 

Despite starting from 10th, Atiqa set consistent lap times and made great passes to secure first place in race 2. This win places Atiqa among an elite list of drivers, including the current F1 champion and her idol Max Verstappen, who has previously tasted success in the Max series en route to F1.

READ | Atiqa Mir: Nine-year-old karting prodigy from Kashmir races to the top

Bohra takes maiden Italian F4 win in US Racing 1-2

Akshay Bohra held off US Racing teammate Jack Beeton for his maiden Italian Formula 4 victory at Paul Ricard. Bohra started from pole after heading both qualifying sessions and fended off Beeton for a 1-2 finish for US Racing. 

Formula-E: Wehrlein win maiden Formula-E title in thriller

Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein drove to his maiden Formula E title after finishing second at the London E-Prix. He denied both Jaguar drivers and finished behind Oliver Rowland in the final race.

Wehrlein started the race just three and four points ahead of Mitch Evans and Nick Cassidy respectively. With Evans finishing in third in London and Cassidy scrapping only three points, Wehrlein kept his position to win the title by seven points.

F3: Bedrin claims maiden victory, Tsolov earns first F3 Feature race win

Nikita Bedrin claimed his first race victory in FIA Formula 3 after taking the lead in the first lap of the Sprint race. The AIX Racing driver was joined by his teammate Tasanapol Inthraphuvasak for an AIX Racing 1-2 finish, meaning all teams have stood on the podium in 2024. 

Nikola Tsolov won his first Feature Race in F3 from ART Grand Prix teammate Laurens van Hoepen for another 1-2 finish this weekend in Budapest. The Bulgarian took the lead at the start and defended from the Dutchman, who started from pole but made a mistake in Turn 1 and had to fight back to finish second. 

With the penultimate round nearing, the fight for the title is nowhere near over with the top four drivers split by merely seven points. 

F2: Maini inherits first-ever win, Antonelli secures second victory of the season

Kush Maini, who started from pole in the Sprint race, stood on the second step of the podium after Trident’s Richard Verschoor outraced him. However, Verschoor was disqualified from the results due to a technical infringement during post-race inspection. This meant Maini inherited the race win, making it the Indian driver’s first-ever F2 race victory. 

Andrea Kimi Antonelli took advantage of a late Safety Car (SC) to take his first Feature race win. The PREMA Racing driver opted for softs while pitting under the SC to charge from fifth and secure his second win this season. Antonelli moved up to sixth place in the table with 85 points.

Championship leader Isack Hadjer, who could not claim decent points, stayed on 140 points but saw his lead come down to 18 over Paul Aron. In the Teams’ Championship, Invicta Racing’s big weekend saw it move up to 184 points, taking the top spot. 

F1: Piastri leads McLaren 1-2 finish in an enthralling Budapest race

Formula One continued to deliver in its strangely exciting season with a new race winner in Oscar Piastri, the seventh different driver to finish first in the last 13 races. His McLaren teammate and pole-sitter, Lando Norris, crossed the finish line second after giving in to team orders that raised eyebrows. 

Norris had a poor start and was bested by the Australian who led the race and looked in position to take his first-ever F1 win. McLaren, however, opted for a strategy which saw Norris reclaim the lead with Piastri having to play catch-up. The British driver seemed to pay no heed to team instructions to switch positions and extend his gap to a whopping six seconds. 

But Norris slowed down drastically towards the last few laps to let his teammate by as McLaren scored a big win on the weekend. Lewis Hamilton rounded up the podium to claim his record-extending 200th podium finish.