Monte Carlo, May 24 (IANS) Kush Maini secured victory in the Monte Carlo Sprint Race for DAMS Lucas Oil, converting pole position at the Circuit de Monaco. The Indian driver held off fellow Alpine Academy talent Gabriele Minì, who finished second for PREMA Racing, and became the first Indian driver to win a race at the iconic venue.

“P1, first Indian to win in Monaco too. It’s a great honour and a dream come true. I want to say thank you to DAMS and everyone who has supported me. We keep believing!,” said Maini.

Maini got the perfect start, but Luke Browning fell down the order to fifth by Turn 1. His poor getaway allowed Gabriele Minì to climb up to P2.

Into Mirabeau, Lindblad attempted a pass on Jak Crawford for third but contact between the two allowed Browning back past for fourth and ahead of the American. The Campos driver emerged from the tangle in third but was later handed a 10-second time penalty for causing a collision.

With DRS enabled, Minì was on the rear wing of the race leader, the gap hovering at 0.3s in the opening 10 laps while the pair pulled over eight seconds clear of Lindblad in third.

The gap was neutralised on Lap 12 when the Safety Car was deployed to recover Joshua Duerksen’s AIX Racing car. The Paraguayan driver was left in the barriers ahead of Portier following contact with MP Motorsport’s Oliver Goethe out of Mirabeau that left the AIX with race-ending damage.

Back to racing conditions entering Lap 15, Maini escaped from DRS range to Minì behind while Lindblad had Browning right on his gearbox in the battle for third on the road.

Goethe was on the move again, sneaking his MP car up the inside of Victor Martins at La Rascasse to take P9 on the road. Contact between the pair resulted in a 10-second time penalty for Goethe.

With 10 laps to go, Minì was back to within 0.2s of the race leader, while Lindblad had dropped back by over 10 seconds in order to set up a late-race charge to minimise his time penalty.

The Red Bull Junior Team driver was told to push on Lap 22, and he immediately upped his pace to put a buffer between himself and Browning.

By the final lap, he was on the rear wing of Minì in second with Maini a further couple of seconds up the road.

With Lindblad’s time penalty applied, it gave Browning P3 and dropped the Campos driver to eighth position.

Crawford wound up fourth ahead of Richard Verschoor, Sebastián Montoya, Leonardo Fornaroli, as Lindblad completed the points in P8.

–IANS

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