Brilliant Start to 2021 F2 Campaign for Jehan Daruvala

It was a strong opening account for Carlin’s Jehan Daruvala to finish second in Sprint Race 1 of the opening round of the 2021 FIA Formula 2 World Championship at Bahrain. His teammate, Dan Ticktum finished 8th after incurring a five second time penalty for an incident mid-race.

 

Lining up 5th on the grid for the sprint race, Daruvala had a good launch off the line to go upto 4th at the end of lap 1. It was after lap 10 of the 23-lap sprint race when Daruvala started to make his move on the top 3, with a great pass on David Beckmann around the outside of Turn 4 for third place. A couple of laps later, the Indian driver quickly dispatched Theo Purcharie for second place. 

With fellow Red Bull junior driver Liam Lawson up the road in the lead, Daruvala showed omnius race pace, taking half a second out of the leader per lap, and was right on his gearbox with five laps to go. But being quick is one thing, passing is another thing at this sprint race. That’s because Daruvala driving in dirty air behind Lawson, caused the turbo to overheat, which resulted in lesser grunt from the engine.  

 

What ensued was a tense battle for the lead, with both Red Bull junior drivers lapping relatively similar to each other and leaving the competition for dust. Eventually, Daruvala had to settle for second place at the line, only nine tenths of a second away from scoring his second F2 sprint race win. Nonetheless, a strong start to the season. 

Daruvala’s 2nd place finish means he'll be lining up 9th for the second sprint race later today due to the top 10 finishers being in a reversed order. 

For tomorrow’s 32-lap feature race, he’ll be starting in 6th position. Sprint Race 2 will commence at 10:10pm (IST).