Jehan Daruvala excels at the legendary Spa circuit, with a Pole, Fastest Lap and a victory
Spa (Belgium), 27 July 2018: Jehan Daruvala, the first Indian to win in the FIA Formula 3 European Championship, once again set a new benchmark with pole position, fastest lap and race victory in Race 1 at the legendary Formula 1 circuit of Spa Francorchamps in Belgium.
The teenage racing sensation from Mumbai had a tense qualifying earlier yesterday, and began setting lap times with only five minutes left for the session to end. Jehan was fifth on the timesheets after his first lap and improved to provisional second on the next lap. On his third and last effort, Jehan gave it everything for a brilliant lap to bag pole position by 0.10 seconds ahead of the then championship leader Marcus Armstrong from New Zealand. Jehan managed to lap the 7 kms circuit in a time of 2:12.983, while Spaniard, Alex Palou was third, two-tenths behind Jehan.
Jehan unfortunately lost ground when the lights went off to start the race. His car bogged down and by the first corner Jehan had fallen to third. As the leaders accelerated out of the iconic Eau Rouge corner, Jehan took advantage of the slip stream and muscled his way into second. Soon, an incident behind the leaders brought out the safety car for two laps.
The race resumed with Alex Palou retaining his lead ahead of Jehan, who in turn faced no threat. Once again, out of Eau Rouge and onto the long Kemmel Straight, Jehan went around the outside of Palou to grab the race lead. Jehan thereafter had to ensure that he immediately put in a bit of a gap to avoid being overtaken once again due to the slip stream effect. He managed to do that successfully, opening up six-tenth advantage over Palou.
The former CIK FIA Asia Pacific Karting Champion continued his dominance over the rest of the field, pulling out over two-tenths of a lap over everyone else. The Spaniard too, did not face any challenges as the two leaders were in a class of their own, pulling away throughout.
Jehan then pulled off a series of fastest race laps to move out of Palou’s reach completely, before easing off a bit, at the end. The Sahara Force India Academy racer eventually won the race with a comfortable margin of 3.2 seconds ahead of Palou and a massive 11.9 seconds ahead of Estonian racer, Ralf Aron in third.
The victory was also Jehan’s fourth podium of 2018 in the FIA F3 series which is arguably one of the toughest stepping stones to reach Formula 1. “The start was not ideal, but I kept my cool as I knew we were quick. Once I was ahead, I just had to make sure I made no mistakes. A lot of credit goes to the team for all the effort that they have put in,” said Jehan after the win.
Jehan has a number of firsts to his credit such as the first Indian to win a Grand Prix (New Zealand Grand Prix in the Toyota Racing Series in 2017) as well as the only Indian to stand on the podium of any FIA World Championship (third in the FIA CIK World Karting Championship). Jehan also remains the only Indian to win titles in the FIA CIK Asia Pacific Karting Championship and British Karting Championship.
Jehan will start 12th and 4th for Race 2 and 3 respectively, later this weekend.
