Maini and Raghunathan's Saturday race round-up
After practice and qualifying on Friday, race one and race two was completed on Saturday in the eighth round of the European F3 season.
Arjun Maini, Van Amersfoort Racing, Dallara F312 Volkswagen
FIA F3 / Suer
For race one, Arjun Maini (Van Amersfoort Racing) started from 21st and finished at the same place after defending hard for his position. At the start, Maini lost positions and dropped to 24th behind Fortec's Andy Chang.
From then on it was constant battles on-track for the Indian to come up, through the field. Throughout the race he was in a tussle with Chang, Michele Beretta (Mucke Motorsport) and Markus Pommer (Motopark).
By lap 16, he was up to 22nd and was fighting with Beretta for 21st place and finally on lap 20, the Indian found a way ahead of Beretta and maintained the position till the end.
Mahaveer Raghunathan (Motopark), on the other hand, having started 33rd, finished 31st in the first race. For the better part of the race, the Indian was running 30th but on the final lap, he lost a place to Carlin's Callum Ilott, who made up two places to finish 30th.
Jake Dennis won the race from Prema Powerteam's teammate Felix Rosenqvist while Antonio Giovinazzi (Carlin) was third.
Points in Rookie championship for Maini
In race two, having started 22nd, Maini finished 15th and scored two points in the rookie championship. At the start on lap two, the Indian and female driver Tatiana Calderon had a contact which pushed Calderon at the back of the pack.
The contact was deemed as a racing incident by the stewards as no penalty was given to Maini.
The Bangalore-based driver was then again in a battle with Beretta but this time had had Sam MacLeod at his tail.
By lap nine, he was running 17th behind Dorian Boccolacci but quickly overtook him and slotted himself behind his teammate Alessio Lorandi.
It was a fantastic battle between the two but with two laps to go Lorandi fell behind as Maini quickly made two positions to finish 15th.
Raghunathan too had a good race starting on 32nd, went on to finish 25th in the race. He was up to 27th by lap seven but then had bad run in between where he fell to 32nd again.
But between lap 18 and 24, the Indian made up seven places to finish 25th including a position gained on the last lap of the race.
Rosenqvist won the second race while Giovinazzi and Lance Stroll completed the podium respectively.
Race three will take place on Sunday.
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