M2 Competition battle for rookie Eurocup win in France

M2 Competition’s Kush Maini was desperately unlucky to miss out on a rookie-class victory at Paul Ricard last weekend after producing one of the fightback drives of the Formula Renault Eurocup season so far.
 
Kush starred in free practice as he set the third-fastest time in both Friday sessions. An incident left him with a damaged front wing in qualifying, but after repairs, he charged up from 18th to 10th with a flying lap under intense pressure as the session ended.
 
A strong start from the 18-year-old Indian brought him up to eighth within a lap and he produced a relentless pace to set the third-best lap of the race and impressively catch and pass several rivals.
 
With just under half of the 30-minute race remaining, he set his sights on fifth, which would also make him the winning rookie, and set about closing down a 3.5-second deficit to just a eight tenths by the finish.
 
Confident of even more on Sunday, Kush qualified fifth to make him the highest-placed rookie for the third time this season – a figure unmatched by anyone else in the series.
 
He ran comfortably in fifth throughout the first half of the race, but was unfortunate to dislodge his front wing after clipping a kerb at the chicane; an incident that forced him into the pits.
 
Having joined M2 ahead of the Silverstone Eurocup event in April, Lucas Alecco Roy was the only driver on the grid to have missed the three-day pre-season test at Paul Ricard.
 
Focusing on gaining as much track knowledge as possible on Friday, the 22-year-old German qualified 19th and then suffered terrible luck on the opening lap of Race One as contact with another car broke part of his front suspension.
 
Pitting for a new toe-link cost him two laps, but once back on track, Lucas found a rhythm and set a best lap that was faster than he had gone in qualifying as he finished 17th.
 
Boosted by that result, his Sunday qualifying was thwarted by a red flag just as Lucas had set his fastest first sector of the session on fresh tyres. With the rubber past its peak when the session resumed, he had to settle for 18th.
 
Another first-lap incident dropped him to 20th, but he again showed strong race pace to close a four-second gap to the pack ahead, pull off some impressive overtaking moves and move up to 16th – and eighth of the rookies – by the chequered flag.
 
The next event is M2’s home race at Spa-Francorchamps on July 27-28, which the Brussels-based outfit reach in fourth place in the Teams’ Championship. Kush is eighth in the Drivers’ table and fourth among the rookies.
 
Kush Maini said: “We’ve had such good pace again this weekend that it’s so frustrating not to have two good points finishes to take away from Paul Ricard. I was third in both practice sessions and the fastest rookie, and that should have been converted into two top-five finishes. Qualifying didn’t go to plan on Saturday, but I was actually really pleased to recover from 10th to sixth in Race One and just miss the rookie win by eight tenths of a second, so we salvaged that one. Sunday qualifying was much better and I was an easy fifth in the race, but I slid wide on the dirt under braking for the chicane and broke the wing against a kerb, so that was that. I’d rather not have such a big gap before Spa, but I’m sure in the second half of the season we can make up a lot of points in the fight for the rookie title.”
 
Lucas Alecco Roy said: “It’s been a tough weekend, but there have been some positives to take away. Paul Ricard is such a difficult circuit to learn that not doing the pre-season test was a big disadvantage and I was behind some drivers I was beating easily at Silverstone and Monaco. In practice and qualifying I needed quite a long time to get up to speed, but actually, the race pace was pretty good. In Race One I had some contact on the first lap and had to pit, but we decided to fix it and go out again so I could get some race mileage, and the laps were faster than in qualifying, which was a huge improvement. In Race Two I had another incident on the first lap, so I dropped to 20th, but I caught up, made several passing moves that I was quite pleased with, and had good pace again.”
 
Jonathan Moury, Team Principal, said: “Another tough weekend, but one thing that’s certain is that we have a very fast car. Kush was comfortably the fastest rookie in practice and third-fastest overall and really should have been in that kind of area all weekend. Unfortunately he broke his wing in Saturday qualifying just when the track conditions were at their best, so he started on the fifth row, but then he drove extremely well to finish sixth and almost win the rookie class. Sunday was just unfortunate for him, but Lucas had a very strong race with some nice and decisive passing moves. After a hectic start to the year, it’s good to now have a big gap to the next round at Spa, which gives us the chance to recharge the batteries, take stock during the summer and really look hard at our strengths and our areas for development to make sure we have a strong end to the year.”