Kush Maini becomes fourth reserve driverAlpine in 2025.

You found that three reserve pilots were not enough for Alpine ? That's good, the arrowed A will finally have four in 2025! This Tuesday, The French team announced the promotion of Kush Maini, member ofAlpine Academy, as a test and reserve driver for the upcoming campaign. The Indian completes an already well-filled roster since he will share this reserve role with Franco Colapinto, Paul Aron and Ryo Hirakawa.

 

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Kush Maini, 24, joined theAlpine Academy in early 2024 and will play its third season this year in Formula 2, this time with the French team DAMS. Last year, with Invicta Racing, the Indian finished 13th in the championship, culminating in a victory in the Sprint race in Hungary. In 2025, through his new role as test and reserve driver for the team Alpine, Kush Maini will take part in TPC (Testing of Previous Cars) tests with old models dating back more than two years. The 24-year-old driver will also be required to drive on the simulator and will have to be present on several race weekends, which will already be the case on 14 of the 24 meetings of the season due to his commitment to Formula 2.

“I am delighted to take on the role of test and reserve driver for Alpine this season, rejoices Kush Maini. Since I joined theAlpine Academy at the beginning of last year, I was incredibly well received by the whole family Alpine and I am grateful to Flavio [Briatore] and Oliver [Oakes] for their support. I am looking forward to getting more time on the circuits F1 in this role and to build on what I have already learned with the team in 2024. I am very excited to take up my role as soon as possible, but for now my focus is on my third season in Formula 2, which begins this weekend in Australia.”

Alpine Power 4 with its reserve drivers


“We are very pleased to announce the expansion of Kush’s role within theAlpine Academy to include test and reserve driver roles for the team this season, adds Julian Rouse, director of theAlpine Academy. Kush has impressed the team with his performances at the TPC and his results in Formula 2 since we started working with him and we expect him to continue to do so in 2025. His expanded role allows us to broaden our pool of talented drivers who can provide support and resources to the wider team over the course of the season.”

Obviously, the promotion of Kush Maini as a reservist raises questions about the policy ofAlpine with regard to the reserve drivers, who will therefore number four in 2025, a very rare and certainly futile quantity. Let us recall, however, that Kush Maini is the nephew of Chetan Maini, businessman and founder of the Reva Electric Car Company, which is now called Mahindra Reva, the electric branch of the Indian manufacturer. To find the trace of the last Indian driver involved in Formula 1, we have to go back to 2012 with Narain Karthikeyan at HRT.

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