Maini and Raghunathan's Saturday race round-up
Van Amersfoort Racing's Arjun Maini and Motopark's Mahaveer Raghunathan continued their FIA European F3 weekend at Portimao with two races on Saturday.
Photo by: FIA F3 / Suer
An engine change saw Maini start race one from 27th. After the start, the Indian dropped places to be 31st at one point on lap three.
But he made up and was running 26th by lap 11 battling hard with Carlin's Tatiana Calderon and Fortec's Andy Chang.
They continue like that for five laps when Calderon lost positions on lap 17 while Maini too lost out on the penultimate lap dropping to 27th behind Mucke Motorsport's Michele Beretta.
Maini finished at the same position ahead of Calderon eventually in the race which was won by Prema's Jake Dennis with Alexander Albon (Signature) second and Felix Rosenqvist (Prema) third.
Raghunathan, meanwhile, started from 32nd and moved up to 29th on lap five battling with Maini. But by lap 11, the Motopark driver fell back to 31st and ran behind Beretta for the majority of the race until a retirement moved him to finish at 30th.
Similar story in race two
Maini started the second race from 27th and moved up to 20th by lap two during the safety car period.
Post SC, the Indian lost significant positions as he dropped to 27th on lap five and was battling with Fortec's Zhi Cong Li and Beretta again.
He slowly moved up and by lap 15, he was running 21st behind Chang, but another drop on lap 17 pushed him down to 25th.
He moved up to 23d on the penultimate lap but dropped again to finish 25th on the last lap in the race won by Rosenqvist ahead of Dennis and Prema's Lance Stroll.
Raghunathan had a better race starting 31st, he was up to 26th by lap two during the SC period.
By lap 12, the Motopark driver settled to 28th running behind Li but made up three places on the last two laps finishing 23rd eventually.
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