Kush Maini's race to F1

But that’s not all. In end-May, Maini won the F2 sprint in Monaco—each F2 round has two races, the sprint and the feature—and became the only Indian to triumph at the storied street circuit. The Bengaluru boy, who has failed to score a single point in three of the six F2 races and is ranked 11th among 22 drivers, will hope this will set the tone for the rest of the season. “I'm just putting my head down and seeing what I can do better in F2, so that it takes me to my ultimate goal: F1,” Maini told Forbes India before heading off to the European leg of the circuit.

As an F1 reserve, Maini’s primary role is to fill in for two frontline drivers if they are sidelined with injuries, illnesses or loss of form. But reserves are also a rare breed that has one foot in an F1 car. In 2023, Liam Lawson filled in for an injured Daniel Ricciardo and later landed a seat with AlphaTauri (now RB); he still races for the team. Besides, they are entitled to hours of testing time on old F1 cars and simulator machines, while also sitting with engineers, attending debriefs, shadowing racers, what have you.  

Maini, too, is now just one step shy of getting into the cockpit—a privilege afforded to no more than 20 drivers in a year, with 10 F1 teams allowed to field only two cars per race. But with Pierre Gasly, a veteran of 162 races and five podiums, spearheading Alpine’s charge and Franco Colapinto, another of its reserves now in the team’s second seat (replacing Jack Doohan), Maini knows the last hurdle might be the toughest. 

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Early Start

Maini comes from a family of motorsport enthusiasts. His father Gautam was a former F3 racer, older brother Arjun raced in F2 and is now a performance test driver with Ford, while uncle Chetan co-founded Sun Mobility that built the Reva, India’s first electric car. Maini started karting at seven, just to compete with the extra attention that Arjun received. “It wasn’t before 10 that I won my first race,” he says, “but when I did, I started to enjoy karting.”

In 2016, Maini debuted in single-seater, open-wheel racing with Italian F4 before graduating to British F3 in 2018. But Covid came in with a sucker punch and his sponsors—critical in a big-budget sport like racing—pulled out. “I just had no money to race and I hadn't proven myself enough yet. I felt it was the end of the road,” says Maini. He took up Muay Thai (Thai kickboxing) for six months to stay distracted. It didn’t help that, in the Asian F3 championships in 2021, in which he raced for the Mumbai Falcons, Maini finished 11th. “That put me down and I wanted to stop,” he recalls. “Back then, there was probably less than 1 percent chance of me being where I am right now. But, somehow, here I am.”   

   

Maini attributes his second coming to well-wishers, especially brother Arjun. “Even though he doesn’t have a degree in psychology, he understands me the best,” says Maini. Arjun himself went through a torrid F2 season in 2018 that was highlighted in his radio chat with his team in the paddock at the end of the sprint race in France. “I swear you guys don’t support me at all… You can’t do this to me,” Arjun had lambasted over the radio. “He’s moved on… he doesn’t talk about the incident anymore, and sometimes just laughs about it,” says Maini. To see his brother move on from a public outburst and a downward spiral also set for Maini an example in resilience, while giving him an impetus to seize the opportunity.  

 In 2023, Maini started his rookie F2 season well, ending up fourth and scoring points at the Bahrain GP, his debut race. Yet, the year, and the one after, didn’t pan out as he had planned; he finished 2023 at rank 11, and 2024, despite five podiums, at 13. Which is where his Invicta Racing teammate Gabriel Bortoleto, who clinched the 2024 F2 title in his debut season, edged him out and graduated to an F1 seat in 2025 with Kick Sauber. “Kush needs to take inspiration from Gabriel and try to do the same this year. The season hadn’t started right for him [before Monaco], but hopefully he will find form going forward,” says Chandhok, who drove F1 for two seasons in 2010 and 2011. 

“A lot of things went wrong last year, the inconsistency took me out,” says Maini. “The races that stood out were the qualifying round pole in Bahrain, and the podium in Jeddah.” Maini considers the Jeddah circuit, with 27 high-speed corners, to be one of the most trying races. “It’s hot, we don’t have power steering or water in F2 cars, the heart rate is probably around 160-170 for an hour straight, you lose 3 kg [of body weight] to dehydration. When you come out of the car, you feel light-headed,” Maini recalls. “I think Jeddah, along with Bahrain, are the races that really caught F1’s eyes and got me promoted at the end of the season.”    

The Alpine Academy noticed Maini’s skills during the TPC (testing previous cars) programme, when he drove their 2022 F1 model. “He was really impressive within that F1 testing environment. Nowadays, F1 has a busy schedule with 20 testing days and 24 races, and we need a pool of drivers with testing experience to support the team. So, it was a natural progression for Kush,” says Julian Rouse, Alpine F1 team sporting director.  “We see a lot of natural talent in him, but the other thing he has in abundance is work ethics.”

 

The biggest differentiator between F1 and F2, says Rouse further, is specs: While F2 is a single-make championship, with every car using the same engine, chassis, tyres etc, every F1 car can be unique and is highly sophisticated, making driving technical. “Drivers need the headspace and mental capacity to utilise all the systems. Talented drivers like Kush tend to pick these up really quickly.”

 

Eye On F1

But that’s the easy part. The challenge ahead will be to break into F1’s elite cohort of 20. While F2 is the breeding ground for F1, it doesn’t lend an automatic segue. The current F1 leader Oscar Piastri, who won the F3 in 2020 and followed it up by clinching the F2 title in his rookie season next, was made to wait a year till being offered a seat in F1 in 2023. “In F1, a lot of things need to come together. Kush needs to put a proper season together, he needs to win many races in F2, he needs to show he is a championship contender, and he also needs a certain amount of financial backing,” says Karthikeyan, who, in 2005, became the first Indian to race for an F1 team.

The last factor is key as, while racing remains a cash-rich sport, the funds are skewed towards F1. An F2 driver is expected to pay for his seat and bring in his own sponsors, while, in F1, even 18-year-old rookie Kimi Antonelli, who drives for Mercedes, is said to be earning around $2 million a year. Says Chandhok: “For F2, the budget is about €2.5 million; that’s about Rs 23 crore. When you approach a corporate in India with such a quote, they will ask themselves what they can do with that money in cricket vis-a-vis motorsport.” As a reserve driver for Alpine, Maini is now entitled to an annual salary, “but it cancels out with what I have to pay for F2”, he smiles.  

The only trade-off commensurate would be the thrill of an F1 ride. “F2 vs F1 is Maruti Suzuki vs Porsche. It’s a different world,” says Maini, who drove an F1 car for the first time in Austria in mid-2024. “Austria is a fast track, where, in F2, I would brake and go down one gear while negotiating some corners. But, in F1, I’d stay in the same gear and won’t even press the brake before lift-off. In F1, we enter corners 15-20 km faster than F2, but are 50-60 km faster when in the middle of the corner.” 

“In F2,” he explains further, “when you have a snap, you can correct it and still do a decent lap; in F1, if you have a snap you are done for. And that's why you see such big crashes in F1.”

Aside from being a life threat, a crashed car is a two-pronged slight for a racer: Not only is it a damage on reputation as drivers return with zero points, it also dents the P&L of the manufacturers. A big crash is likely to cost the company over $1 million. Which is why when Maini emerged from a horrific crash in Baku in mid-2024 he was more livid than scared for his life. The accident piled on to his frustration over several unsuccessful rounds preceding Baku, and was heightened when Maini’s car, starting at the 5th position, failed to move after the lights went out and was based from behind. “I remember all the fans shouting there's a fire. I got out, but I didn't care. My heart rate was very low. I was just so annoyed that I didn't have a chance,” he says. 

Does Maini think he’s ready for F1? A devout follower of Lord Hanuman, he speaks about destiny. Then adds: “Last year, even though I’d say I was ready, I wasn’t, but the tough year shaped me into a new person and I feel very positive.”  

Both Chandhok and Narayanan, though, feel Maini should realistically target 2026 and focus, instead, on a prolific run this season. 2026 is also the year when Cadillac will be debuting in F1, adding two seats and throwing open the pool a tad bit more.  

Besides, by then, the state of flux Alpine is in now—with team principal Oliver Oaks resigning a month ago and once-banned, executive director Flavio Briatore taking over—would also have settled. “If he’s able to pull some results out of the bag in F2, everyone will be watching,” says Narayanan. “F1 teams want a winning package, so if he finishes the F2 season in the top three, he will have a fair crack at it.”