For the 19-year old Arjun Maini, Thursday’s announcement is a sweet reward; just not for some consistent results shown across categories, but the ability displayed to come fighting out of tough times.
After winning Force India’s talent-hunt in 2011, Maini moved to the UK for karting the following year, where he did not have a great season and Jehan Daruvala pipped him to the Force India’s young driver academy.
But Maini persevered and came back strongly in 2013, finishing runner-up in the JK Racing India Series in his first season in formula cars. His first big moment, though, came in the 2014 BRDC F4 championship which he led until the final round only to lose out by just three points.
Commenting on his journey over the last five years, Maini called it “a bumpy ride” with highs and lows. “I had some good times in karts before taking to cars. The BRDC F4 was great, though I am still disappointed that I lost the title and the Toyota Racing series in New Zealand was very good with a few wins.”
However, the high of 2014 did not last long, and 2015 was a tough year for him as he finished 18 in the FIA European F3 championship.
This prompted a team change for 2016 but with just two points from four rounds, the season was heading nowhere and something drastic needed to be done.
“The plan was to do F3 for 2016 but it was a bit more disappointing and there were lot of things out of our control. I had belief in myself and learnt a lot of lessons right from my karting days. So I just needed to stay at my best so that when an opportunity comes, I could make it count.”
That was when a last minute call-up from Jenzer Motorsport materialised for the GP3 season from the third round at Silverstone. With no testing, Maini qualified fourth in his first outing and finished the season tenth in the standings despite missing the first two rounds.
He scored 50 of the team’s 68 points including a podium in Hungary.
It is now five years since Narain Karthikeyan flew the Indian flag on the F1 grid. But for now, this development seen along with Daruvala’s good show so far in the F3 championship, offers many a hope for Indian motorsports that a third F1 driver is not far away.
