Maini hoped for better, but pleased with rookie Italian F4 season

Competing in the Italian Formula 4 series, the Indian finished fifth in the rookie standings, while was ranked 16th in the main championship.

Throughout the season, Maini claimed seven rookie podium finishes, and one main podium in Vallelunga.

"It was overall a good learning year, I feel I could defiantly improve on cleaner races which means no crashes through the races," he told Motorsport.com.

"I think I did a good job pace wise, considering we entered in one of the hardest F4 championship in the world with only two tests because of my broken collar bone.

"Being always up there [in the top half] pace wise in the races was a confident booster," he added.

The Bangalore-based driver, however, did face difficulties in adjusting to a bigger grid of drivers which particularly affected his starts.

"The most difficult thing [to adapt to] was probably the race starts, judging the size of the car and how close you are to the other cars

"And also how far away are you from making contact while the race is going on," he added.

Rookie driver in rookie team hurt chances

It was not only Maini's debut season but also his team BVM Racing's maiden run in the open-wheel championship this year.

The Indian felt the team were limited on reference points after they were down to the sole car, when Lorenzo Colombo switched teams after the first four rounds.

"We were leading the rookie championship at one point and then my teammate left the team which did not make life easier as I was a rookie and so was the team," he explained.

"We were [then] heading into technical tracks like Monza without any reference on the data which was definitely challenging.

"The real positive was that we had really good pace every race and we had multiple top four qualifyings but due to a few silly mistakes by me it cost us many points.

"But that's what rookie years are for. I feel with the pace we had through the year we should have been fighting for the win in the rookie and top eight in the championship."

When asked about his future plan, the Indian revealed that he is most likely to stay back in the championship in 2017, but added that he could switch teams for title assault.

"We are most probably going to continue doing Italian F4, [and] we will make a decision on the team after the winter tests are concluded which will be in 2-3 weeks time."