F2 2018: Arjun Maini to compete in FIA Formula 2 Championship with Trident

India's Arjun Maini will graduate to the FIA Formula 2 Championship after competing in the GP3 Series last year. The 20-year-old Bengaluru native will move to the second tier F2 Championship (the official feeder series for Formula 1) after having competed in the third tier GP3 Series last year where he won the sprint race in the first of eight rounds of the 16-race season.

Maini went on to score three more top five finishes in the remaining 14 races (the sprint race at Monza was cancelled), which included a feature race podium in the final round at Abu Dhabi while racing for Jenzer Motorsport. He had also raced with Jenzer in the 2016 season, when he abandoned a torrid FIA Formula 3 European Championship season and joined GP3 from the fourth round onwards. He scored three top-five finishes including a sprint race podium (second place) in the Hungarian round. He was 10th in the series standings in 2016 with 50 points and 9th last year with 72 while French teammate Dorian Boccolacci was sixth with 93 points.

"I’m very excited to be competing in the FIA Formula 2 championship with Trident Motorsport," said Maini. "I felt we were quite competitive during the post-season test and given that the series is using all-new cars for the coming season, I’m quite excited for the year ahead. Trident is a very strong team and I’m sure if we work hard we’ll be in for some strong results during the course of the season.”

Maini will also continue to be a junior driver for the Haas-Ferrari F1 team as well, along with 19-year-old American Santino Ferrucci, who raced against Maini in the 2015 Toyota Racing Series in New Zealand where the two finished third and fourth in the points table, separated by just 15 points. 

Ferrucci had already made the step up to F2 from GP3 last year when he started competing in the second tier series from its seventh to eleventh and final round. 

Maini also continues to be supported by JK Tyre and mentored by Karun Chandhok, the second Indian driver to make it to the Formula 1 grid.

BIG STEP UP

On a technical front, the F2 car is a big step up from the GP3 series. The latter uses a car powered by a naturally aspirated 3.4-litre, V-6 cylinder engine developing 400hp. Last year's F2 car was using a 4-litre, naturally aspirated V-8 cylinder engine developing 612hp. A new car will be used for F2 this year with the same 3.4-litre, V-6 cylinder engine from the GP3 series car but with a turbocharger that will boost the maximum power to 620hp. The car will have a maximum weight of 720kg, including the driver.

That much power and a high power-to-weight ratio combined with wide tyres with a lot of rubber will give drivers the experience of handling a big, powerful single seat racing car akin to an F1 car, that produces around 1,000hp. The Halo cockpit protection device will also feature on the new car from this year and in F1 as well.