The 15 year old will start 2nd on the grid in Race 3 tomorrow
30th July, 2016, Coimbatore: On the first day of the JK Tyre Racing Championship, Kush Maini, who competitively races in the Italian F4 championship, secured a top podium finish in Race 1 while finishing 5th in Race 2 in the Euro JK16 category of the championship.
In the qualifying session that began after 10am, Kush displayed calm nerves as he consistently set fastest laps of the session to secure pole position for Race 1. His best lap timing was 1:00.660, 6/10ths of a second ahead of the second placed Nayan Chatterjee. This bode well for Race 1 as the youngster led from start to finish to secure his first win of Round 1 of the championship.
Race 2 saw Kush start from pole once again but a problem with his gears caused him to slip down the grid and run for the rest of the race in 6th place. A few laps to the end of the race, Kush was overtaken by Nayan and finished the race in 7th place. But penalties being awarded to two drivers for jump starting pushed him up to 5th place. This meant that Kush would start in 2nd place for Race 3 that begins tomorrow just before noon.
When asked about the nearly faultless Race 1 as compared to a shaky Race 2, Kush was measured in his excitement. "We were very fast in qualifying and won Race 1 by nearly 3 seconds. It was unfortunate that I had problems with my gearbox in Race 2 but if not for that, we would have gotten another win. I'm looking forward to getting back on the podium tomorrow and have faith in my team to fix the issues and give me a great car tomorrow.
Races 3 and 4 of the Euro JK16 category takes place tomorrow on the 31st of July at the Kari Motor Speedway track in Coimbatore.