Invicta Racing picked up its first podium finish of the 2024 FIA Formula 2 season as Kush Maini secured second place in the Jeddah Feature Race.
Alpine junior Kush started the 28-lap race from pole position after Prema Racing’s Oliver Bearman withdrew from the FIA F2 weekend and got an electrifying start off the line.
He quickly opened up a significant margin, but that was nullified when the Safety Car came out for a first lap incident.
Gabriel Bortoleto, starting from 14th, had a very short race which ended in the first few laps due to a mechanical problem.
When the race restarted on lap four, Kush was able to open up a gap to DAMS’ Jak Crawford out front behind before the American driver made his mandatory pitstop as soon as the pit window opened.
Invicta Racing with Kush, as well as Van Amersfoort Racing’s Enzo Fittipaldi and Prema’s Andrea Kimi Antonelli, opted to pit a lap later which proved to be the better strategy as all three came out ahead of Crawford.
While Kush initially was able to open the gap to Fittipaldi behind, the net lead changed on lap 13 to the VAR driver before another Safety Car appearance.
Two of the three cars starting on the alternate strategy and therefore leading the race on the track, Hitech GP’s Amaury Cordeel and PHM AIX Racing’s Taylor Barnard, pitted during this time and lost no positions, while DAMS’ Juan Manuel Correa stayed out.
The race restarted on lap 19 with Kush successfully defending from Crawford over fifth. In the closing laps, Kush was able to make his way past Barnard and later Cordeel on the slower Super Soft tyre, and then gained another place when Correa pitted, to slot into second.
That remained the order until the end, giving Kush his first podium with the team and the team’s first of 2024.
Albert Park at Melbourne, Australia, is the next destination for FIA Formula 2 on the weekend of 22-24 March.
FEATURE RACE RESULTS:
- Kush Maini: P02, 18 points
- Gabriel Bortoleto: DNF
KUSH MAINI:
I am feeling good. Yesterday was a tough race and we really, really turned it around today. We made a massive step forward and we know now what to do with the car and the team and I are feeling very positive for Melbourne. Today we had good pace, not quite the pace to win, but we definitely held our own which is very positive, and it is solid points in the bag. So, it was a good day in the office overall.
GABRIEL BORTOLETO:
There is not much to say about today’s race unfortunately. It was just not our weekend, sadly. I wish we could have scored some points for the team here. We are analysing what happened, but there is nothing that could be done from the team’s or from my side. Melbourne is next, a track that I love and where I won in FIA Formula 3 last season, so I am looking forward to it. We will keep pushing.
ANDY ROCHE, TEAM PRINCIPAL:
It was a really good race from Kush. We still have a little bit of work to do on race pace, but I was very impressed with him. He handled the tyre degradation very well and the pace was good at the end, and hopefully we will take another step forward at Melbourne. We encountered a driveshaft problem with Gabriel’s car which we had not encountered before, which ended his race early. It is still very close in the championship standings at this stage, and it will be around the middle of the season where we get a clearer picture of the pecking order.
