India's Kush Maini was on Tuesday promoted to the reserve driver's role at the Alpine Formula 1 team ahead of the season opener in Melbourne on March 16.

Maini competes in the Formula 2, a feeder series to Formula 1. The 24-year-old from Bengaluru joined Alpine's junior driver program in October 2023 and now joins Franco Colapinto, Paul Aron and Ryo Hirakawa in the pool of reserve drivers of the F1 team.