Arjun Maini

Born on 10 December 1997 in Bangalore, India, Arjun Maini is the first Indian driver in the history of the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters. He comes from a motorsport family: his brother Kush is also a racing driver who competed in the FIA Formula 2, his father Gautam raced in domestic Indian championships, and his uncle Chetan Maini is renowned as the founder of India’s first electric car manufacturer.

Maini received his first kart at the age of five and claimed his first championship titles at just eight years old. His breakthrough came in 2011, when he won India’s national Rotax Max Junior Championship. That same year, he secured the coveted title in the “One in a Billion” talent programme run by the Formula 1 team Force India, which singled him out as India’s most promising young racing talent.

His single-seater career began in 2014 with the BRDC Formula 4, where Maini took eight wins and nine podium finishes but narrowly missed the title by just three points to teammate George Russell. Stints in the FIA Formula 3 European Championship and the GP3 Series followed, with Maini claiming his first race win in the 2017 sprint race at Barcelona. From 2017 to 2018 he served as a development driver for the Haas F1 Team before competing in two seasons of the FIA Formula 2 Championship. His transition to GT racing came via the European and Asian Le Mans Series.

In 2021, Maini made history by becoming the first Indian driver ever to compete in the DTM. At the Norisring he claimed his first podium finish in the series, again a first for any Indian driver. In 2024 he delivered his strongest DTM season to date: with the first pole position by an Indian driver in DTM history and three podium finishes, he ended the year in seventh place overall. Since 2025, Maini has raced as a Ford factory driver for HRT, chasing India’s first DTM race victory.