India’s Kush Maini finished a creditable seventh after starting from the back of the grid in the opening round of the Formula 2 Championship Feature Race on Saturday. Maini, who is part of the Alpine academy driving for the Invicta team, drove an amazing feature race after starting absolutely last.

Maini, in fact, secured the pole position in the qualifying but was disqualified because of some technical infringement with his car.

He went on the Prime tyres like the majority of the drivers and ensured that he had a long and consistent stint before changing to the faster soft tyres.

He was the last to pit and fortunately well timed with a safety car and he exited the pits in P11.

With fresh tyres, he made good progress through the field by first passing both the Prema cars driven by Bearman and Antonelli.

“I was really happy when we got provisional pole on Thursday because that meant that we were able to deliver over one lap. It was a day with the highest of highs and then the low when we were told much later that my qualifying times won’t count because I was disqualified due to a technical reason,” Maini said.

“Even though it did not change the performance, I had to start both races from the back of the grid. I tried to make as many positions as I could in both races and so as a team we also have enough data to go into the next round.

“It was also good to get some points in the feature race. Looking forward to racing in Saudi next week,” he added.

Formula 2 returns next week alongside F1 in Saudi Arabia.