Arjun Maini delivers at Nurburgring to get 8 points: DTM
Nurburgring (Germany), 22 August 2021: Mercedes-AMG driver Arjun Maini finally got his DTM Championship going finishing both the races in points here on Saturday and Sunday. Starting on P12, Maini finished Race 1 in 10th to bag two points while he got 6 points in Race 2 after starting on P14 and finishing 13th.
Race 2 was won by Alex Albon of Alphatauri AF Corse while Kelvin van der Linde, the Championship leader at the half-way stage won Race 1.
Arjun Maini who clocked 1:27.996 in FP 1 after a very useful 27 laps was less than half a second off the pace of the fastest man Vincent Abri who clocked 1:27.480. In FP2, Maini did another 27 laps to better understand the circuit and the car and was again upto pace posting his best time of 1:27.620 which is just off 0.419 off the top car. He clocked 1:28.224 in Race 1 and was +52.788 after one pit stop in Race 2 (1:28.472).
A delighted Maini said: “I’m ecstatic with how the weekend went and it is nice to be back in points and I hope to steer clear and look forward to the second-half of the season.” After four rounds, Arjun Maini is in 15th place in the overall standings with 8 points ahead of Timo Glock of Rowe Racing.
The Bengaluru racing ace marked yet another milestone to become the first Indian to score points in the DTM Championship. Maini showed tremendous maturity by finishing 10th and a career-best seventh at the two races held at the legendary race circuit. After enduring a series of unfortunate incidents, the Mercedes-AMG star finally had a race weekend devoid of any on-track misfortune and he delivered a steady and measured drive to get valuable points.
Racing for the GetSpeed team, Maini struggled to put an Ideal lap manage P12 for Race 1 grid. The Indian made a tremendous getaway, making a few places, as the cars made their way around the first lap. However, an incident involving fellow Mercedes star Max Bukh brought out the Safety Car, which meant that the Indian had it to do all again. The restart saw Maini make up yet more positions with the Indian establishing himself in the top 10.
Unfortunately, tyre wear issues hampered Maini’s progress and he was forced to nurse his car home to a 10th place race finish.
A wet Qualifying 2 session saw Maini take P14 as he was piloting his GT3 racecar for the first time in wet-weather conditions. Despite his best efforts, Maini failed to qualify inside the top 10 and had a mountain to climb during the second race but managed to get into points again..
The race ultimately proved to be a chaotic as it saw nine cars retire. it was a shrewd call from Maini’s GetSpeed racing team that proved to make the difference as an early and well-executed pit-stop saw Maini make up a host of positions over the duration of the race and eventually claim his best result in the gruelling German race series.
“It’s been a long timing coming and I’m happy to have finally scored my first points in DTM. Obviously, a lot of credit has to go to the team at GetSpeed, I think our pit-stop was the second-fastest of the weekend and if it wasn’t for their tireless effort, this result would not have been possible,” said Maini who is backed by Omega Seiki Mobility and JK.Tyre.
“In fact, I think sixth was a definite possibility. There was the incident with Mike Rockenfeller, that cost us a lot of time and by the end of the race, I was gaining on Lucas Auer who finished only a second ahead of me.
“Nonetheless I look forward to the next round at the Red Bull Ring and I hope this weekend proves to be an inflection point for the rest of the season.”
Arjun Maini, who shifted focus to endurance racing told this writer earlier that his love and passion for this long-format has been increasing by the day and he is really caught the endurance bug. “F1 is not my target anymore. I enjoy taking part in Endurance races and look forward to making it to the Le Mans.”
He started his DTM career with the first round in Monza where he finished 13th in Race 1 and 18th in Race 2. In Round 2 at lausitzring, he finished 14th after a good qualifying stint which put him on P6 but he suffered mechanical issues. In Race 2, he finished 12th starting from P9. The third at Circuit Zolder saw Arjun Maini suffer misfortune which was not in his hands as he had his first DNC after P15 in qualification and the car was so badly damaged and could not be readied for Race 2. And it took Round 4 in Nurburgring here to bring him back to racing and he delivered with points.
The next 2 races will be September 4 to 5 at the Red Bull Ring in Austria.
Race 2 report:
Arjun Maini finished Race 2 in 13th after a penalty. Earlier, Alex Albon scored his maiden victory in DTM at the Nürburgring, the second win for Ferrari in history of the series. In an action-packed race, the Thai driver, who had started from pole position, stayed away from all the incidents and won in dominant fashion. Red Bull’s replacement Formula 1 driver is the sixth winner from eight DTM races held so far this season. In dry, good weather conditions, Spaniard Daniel Juncadella with the Mercedes-AMG of the GruppeM team and two-time DTM champion Marco Wittmann with the Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW rounded out the podium.
After eight of 16 races, Kelvin van der Linde of the ABT Sportsline Audi team is the unofficial ‘half-time champion’ of the 2021 DTM, although, on Sunday, the South African failed to score points for the first time this year after a collision with Liam Lawson and Mike Rockenfeller in the chicane. With 129 points, Kelvin van der Linde is starting the second half of the season as the leader in the drivers’ standings. His margin over Maximilian Götz (96) decreased to 33 points. Third in the standings is now Wittmann (94), Albon (82) has moved up to fourth place.
Porsche, meanwhile, had bad luck during its DTM début. Like on Saturday, Michael Ammermüller didn’t make it to the finish with the 911 run by SSR Performance, but had clearly shown the potential with fourth place on the starting grid. 19-year-old Belgian Esteban Muth scored the best result of the season for Lamborghini so far with fifth place. Ex-Formula 1 driver Timo Glock finally scored his first championship points of the season with the ROWE Racing BMW.
“Today, that was a really good day for my team and for myself,” Albon said after becoming the first DTM race winner from Thailand. “The team has been working hard overnight and that paid off. Today, we have made a step forward, we want to carry over this momentum.” The Red Bull Ferrari combination by AF Corse is the first team to have won races with both its drivers, Albon and Lawson, this year.
