Maini satisfied with strong grid position and looking to capitalise for Campos Racing

1 September 2023

Kush Maini put himself back in the top 10 with his best Qualifying result since Round 8 at Silverstone. The Campos Racing driver finished Monza’s session in sixth and was satisfied to have returned to front-running contention after a recent run of disappointing results.

Having started his rookie campaign well, Maini has slipped down the Championship order to 12th but was back in fine form around the Autodromo Nazionale Monza, contending for a top spot throughout a frantic session.

After having a bit of time to reflect on the session, despite missing out on a top five result, he was pleased to be back nearer to where he and Campos feel is where they should be.

“I think the last few rounds we haven’t really shown what we can do,” Maini explained. “Obviously, a couple of Qualifying’s were compromised like the one at Spa-Francorchamps with the tyres. It feels good to be back in the fight for both races. I think today we had a competitive car, all year in Qualifying I know we can be up there in the top five so that’s very positive and now we have two good starting positions for the races so now we’ll try to make the most of them.”

While he got a good lap in to start Qualifying and end up in the top five going into the second runs, the Indian driver wasn’t able to get another attempt on the board. One of several drivers to miss the cut off and take the chequered flag before they could open their final flying lap, Maini says that the chaos was just part of Monza Qualifying, but his initial pace was very promising to take into the Sprint and Feature Races.

“The first set was relatively clean. Everyone was in a train of cars, and it was representative to how quick you were, I think we were P5. The second set was a complete write off. I didn’t even do my lap and not many people improved because it was just chaos. I think the first half of Qualifying was representative and we were P5 then, so we’ll take that as a positive into tomorrow.

“The thing is you don’t want to be towing the whole field around. Ralph left on his second set while no one else had left the pitlane so he was on his own and doing his own thing. For me, the last thing you want is to be leading the pack and then everyone else improves and jumps you in the results. If no one wants to lead the pack, then what happened today will happen again where no one really gets a lap. In the end I’m ok with how it went.”

Looking ahead to tomorrow’s action and the prospect of fighting in the points once again, Maini says it’s about time he and the team put together a clean weekend and earned another strong result.

While another podium to add to his Melbourne Sprint P3 would be a nice result, the Campos driver is more focused on getting his season back to the levels of earlier in the campaign and secure another two points-scoring results for the team.

“It's just going to be about keeping it clean and staying out of trouble. I think we’ve gotten into trouble too many times in the past few races so it’s about time we have a clean race. We’re in a really good position to score great points and anything can happen at Monza, so you never know.

“A podium would be great, but I just need two good, clean races and fight at the front where we should’ve been the last few races so I’m not thinking about a podium just yet.”