Jehan Daruvala Wins A Sprint Race At Monza

Carlin’s Jehan Daruvala had a tale of two halves for the two sprint races at the fifth round of the 2021 FIA Formula 2 World Championship. While the first race garnered a ninth place finish, the Red Bull Junior driver more than made up for it by scoring a dominant second career win in Formula 2. His teammate, Dan Ticktum on the other hand, retired from the first race, and finished 11th for the second sprint race.

Starting ninth for the first sprint race, an action-packed opening couple of laps saw Daruvala hold on to his starting grid slot. Once the lengthy safety car and virtual safety car periods came to an end, the Indian driver immediately pounced on Oscar Piastri, but contact meant his front wing took damage, and was forced to pit for repairs. Now, strapped on with a softer set of tyres, and the safety car bunching up the field, Daruvala scythed his way up for a valiant recovery to where he started in ninth position. 

Reverse grid rules meant that the grid order for the second sprint race would be the top 10 finishers of Sprint Race 1 reversed. And so, Daruvala started on the front row in second position. The Indian driver took full advantage of that front row start to power past pole sitter David Beckmann for the lead of the race. After that it was a flawlessly dominant drive from Daruvala till the chequered flag to take his first win of the season by 6.5 seconds. 

This result moves Daruvala up to eighth overall in the driver’s standings. What’s more, the Indian driver has a chance to replicate this performance for tomorrow’s feature race where he’ll be starting second again due to his brilliant qualifying performance yesterday. 

The feature race will commence at 1:50pm (IST). All races will be broadcast on EuroSport.