Arjun Maini starts with a podium in Gold Cup
By Darshan Chokhani
Imola, 5 April 2022: Arjun Maini started his 2022 GT World Challenge Europe series’ Endurance Cup campaign for Haupt Racing Team alongside teammates Hubert Haupt and Florian Scholze. The first round in Imola was held last weekend, withthe Indian racing in the Gold Cup class where the trio are driving the #5 Mercedes-AMG GT3 machine.
In a large field of 52 cars competing in the Endurance Cup championship, Maini and co, kick-started their week-end finishing 22nd and 46th overall in the two practice sessions which put them third and 10th respectively, in the Gold Cup category.
Moving on to Qualifying, each driver had 15 minutes time in Q1, Q2 and Q3. The final race start position is then calculated on the basis of the average of their best times. The Q1 session saw them finish 41st overall and ninth in category, whereas in Q2 they were 31st overall and sixth.
Finally in Q3, they ended up 18th overall and fifth in category. The average of the three sessions’ times saw them finish 32nd overall and seventh in their category for the first race. The Sunday’s three hour race saw a steady start from the HRT outfit to be 30th overall in the first half hour.
They stayed away from the melee and crucially jumped to fourth in the Gold Cup class. Even though they dropped by two places overall in the next one hour, they managed to claw back in the next hour to enter the last half hour in 22nd overall with Maini driving.
All this while, the trio kept their nose clean as Maini was involved in a close fight for the final place in the Gold Cup class podium. Despite losing a place in the overall rankings to be 23rd, the team eventually ended up third in the Gold Cup category to secure a podium finish to open the 2022 season.
“I think overall it was a good weekend for us, with strong points” said Maini. “In qualifying, we had traffic and so we couldn’t optimise it, so I am glad we made it up in the race. But still, as a team we want more and we worked really hard towards it. So, yeah, we can definitely be championship contenders and onward to Paul Ricard where we can fight for the win. I am looking forward to it after a great start to the season.”
With only the first round in the books, therefore Haupt Racing Team sits third in the Gold Cup category’s teams’ standings with 15 points. Likewise, the trio of Maini, Haupt and Scholze are third in the drivers’ standings. The next Endurance Cup event will be held in Paul Ricard on June 3-5 weekend, but before that Maini will be in action in DTM with HRT on April 28-30 weekend.
