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Lausitzring (Germany), May 23 (IANS): India's Arjun Maini, driving for Mercedes-AMG with team HRT, narrowly missed his first podium of the season in only his third race of the 2022 DTM Championship.
After starting sixth in an extremely competitive qualifying session, Maini made a good start and was able to move into fourth during the first lap of the race. A quick pit stop from the team saw him briefly move into third, ahead of Lucas Auer. However, Maini's colder tyres meant he fell back to fourth, a position he would maintain till the checkered flag.
The 2022 DTM championship boasts of 29 drivers, which is not only the largest grid in DTM history but also an extremely competitive grid with some of the world's best talent from the GT3 world taking part. Given its competitive nature, there were 21 cars that qualified within one second of the pole in Qualifying 1 and 23 cars within a second in Qualifying 2.
Maini's second qualifying session was compromised due to a Red Flag with 4 minutes to go, with the Indian failing to set a lap time when the session was halted. He eventually qualified 14th and lost some places as he went off on one of the corners as he battled side by side with several cars. He was, however, able to recover to finish 13th in Race 2, according to a release issued by his management team.
Arjun Maini said, "It was a mixed weekend for me. P6 in qualifying and P4 in the race on Saturday. We had a good pace and a good pit stop. There was then a turbulent qualifying on Sunday, which meant I ended up starting from down in P14. In the end, I came home 13th - not ideal, but I feel positive looking ahead to Imola."
"I want to thank OSM (Omega Seiki Mobility) for Supporting me in this extremely competitive series."
The next Race Weekend of DTM will take place in Imola in Italy on June 18 and 19.