The Indian driver brought a sixth-place home on Saturday. Boschung delivered a promising performance despite an incident with a rival and tire degradation didn’t allow him make it into the points
Campos Racing bagged an important point confidence-wise at the Hungaroring, which hosted the ninth round of the 2023 FIA Formula 2 season, after three tough previous weekends. Kush Maini finished in sixth place in his Campos Racing-run Dallara F2 car during Saturday’s sprint race. Swiss Ralph Boschung was also in fight for a points-paying result despite minor facts were costly for his goal.
On Friday, Maini took 4th place in the timesheets with a lap time of 1m29.221s in free practice after putting 17 laps under his belt. Boschung clocked a lap time of 1m29.954s in the morning. Later in qualifying, Maini put together a lap of 1m28.772s to provisionally qualify in ninth place but lowered his time in the closing moments of the session. At the end, the Indian driver of Campos Racing set a time of 1m28.164s to take 10th, meaning the pole position on the reverse grid of Saturday’s sprint race. Boschung posted a lap of 1m28.316s and set to start from 13th with points in his sights.
When the lights went out, Maini got a great reaction and approached T1 holding the first place. But he locked up and Dennis Hauger sneaked up into the lead. Both Ayumu Iwasa and Oliver Bearman also moved past Maini on the first lap. But Maini’s counterattack came soon as he regained third place by overtaking Bearman in lap 2. Further adrift, Boschung was running in 15th. The field remained nip and tuck for the first half of the 28-lap race. Unfortunately, Boschung’s race came to an early end as Clément Novalak crashed into him at T1 and the Virtual Safety Car was deployed. Maini hold off Bearman and Théo Pourchaire until four laps to go, when he lost pace due to tire wear. Despite Jehan Daruvala also got past him, Maini made his best to take the checkered flag in sixth place.
Sunday’s feature race was more strategic with Maini opting to start on the medium compound and Boschung choosing the softer rubber for the first stint. But when the lights went out, Maini couldn’t make a good start and dropped several places. After the first lap, Boschung was running in 13th place and Maini was in the back of the field. Boschung made his mandatory pit stop in lap 9, when he started to lose pace. Maini remained in track until lap 21 when he headed into the pitlane for the softer rubber. In the case of Boschung, his race got compromised by lack of the pace of the medium tire. In the case of Maini, Jak Crawford closed the door at the very last moment and Maini spun out. As a result, both drivers of Campos Racing finished at the back.
The tenth round of the season will take place at Spa-Francorchamps this weekend, the last one before the summer break.
