Kush Maini to make World Endurance Championship debut at Bahrain

Indian racer Kush Maini is all set to foray into the World Endurance Championship (WEC), with a maiden outing at the 6 Hours of Bahrain this weekend (October 29-30).

• Maini to race for ARC Bratislava at Bahrain
• Will compete in LMP2 Pro AM class

Kush Maini to race at 6 Hours of Bahrain

Maini will be racing for Slovakian outfit ARC Bratislava in the LMP2 Pro Am class. He’ll drive the No. 44 Oreca 07, alongside Oliver Webb and Miro Konopka. He’ll then hand the car over to Nelson Panciatici for the 2021 season finale, the 8 Hours of Bahrain, next week.

Kush Maini career

This will be the young racer’s first endurance racing outing. He’s spent the last few years racing in single-seaters. He finished second overall in the 2020 British F3 championship, and went on to compete in the 2021 F3 Asian Championship for Mumbai Falcons, alongside F2 racer Jehan Daruvala.

“A massive thank you to the team for trusting me with this opportunity on such short notice. Endurance racing is a completely different ball game to what I am used to, so [I’m] going to learn as much as I can to be well prepared for 2022,” Maini said, hinting that he’s potentially targeting more endurance racing outings next year.

Racing runs in the Maini family; Kush’s older brother is none other than Arjun Maini, who also has a fair amount of prototype endurance racing experience himself. Arjun made the switch to DTM this year, becoming the first-ever Indian to compete in the series. After getting to grips with an all-new car and style of racing, he picked up his maiden DTM podium result at Norisring.

6 Hours of Bahrain

The 6 Hours of Bahrain kicks off the WEC’s finale double-header. While this race will run in daylight, the 8 Hours of Bahrain next week will start in daytime and conclude in the dark.

The Bahrain International Circuit happens to be a challenging track for the brakes, along with high tyre degradation.