Another Podium For Jehan Daruvala At Baku Sprint Race

The Baku street circuit has a penchant for crazy races. Unfortunately that just about cost Prema Racing’s Jehan Daruvala, as the Indian narrowly missed out on the win and had to settle for second place in the sprint race. His teammate and fellow Red Bull junior driver, Dennis Hauger crashed out of the race. 

Starting third on the grid for the 21-lap race, the Indian driver had a brilliant launch off the line and swiftly took the race lead by the first two corners. With the battle behind him getting feisty, Daruvala took full advantage of that and was dominating the race on course for his first win of the season.

But Baku being Baku, a twist in the tale came in the form of his teammate Dennis Hauger crashing out of the race. This led to the safety car being called out and completely eliminating Daruvala’s four-second lead. Nevertheless, the Prema driver held off the ART of Federick Vesti in the first safety car restart, but another incident meant a second safety car period. 

This time however a slight lock-up at the restart proved costly, as Vesti snatched the lead away with only three laps to go. But a third safety car period gave Daruvala one final racing lap to get the lead back, and the Indian driver got perilously close, missing out on the win by just 0.3 seconds.

Yes, a win would be quite a way to really kickstart his championship campaign, but Daruvala finishing ahead of his championship rivals, Theo Pourchaire and leader Felipe Drugovich allows him to close up the points gap in the drivers standings. There’s also the 29-lap feature race on Sunday left for Daruvala to gain more ground, but it’ll be a tougher task as he will be starting eighth since Friday’s qualifying results decide the grid.

The final race of the weekend will commence at 12:35pm (IST) and will be broadcast on Star Sports.