Jehan Daruvala Qualifies 15th For F2 Feature Race

The third round of the FIA Formula 2 Championship at the Hungaroring saw an intense qualifying session affected by wet weather. Unfortunately it was a difficult day for Carlin as Jehan Daruvala qualified 15th for the feature race with teammate Yuki Tsunoda lining up 14th. 

Wet weather saw a relatively quiet free practice with only 9 drivers setting a timed lap in the entirety of the 45 -minute session. Neither Daruvala nor Tsunoda set a timed lap as well as the front running drivers. Some of the reasons behind this is that the drivers are only limited to 3 sets of wet weather tyres for the entire race weekend.  , Tthus the reason for a lack of running heading into qualifying.

The initial 10 mins were difficult for both Carlin drivers with  Tsunoda 14th and Daruvala 15th, . Bboth over 2 seconds off initial session topper Callum Ilott. With drivers setting up for the final runs towards the dying stages of qualifying, a spin for Daruvala led to the car beinggetting beached in the gravel trap. Thus it resulted in a red flag situation and a premature end to qualifying with just over four minutes on the clock. As a result, nobody could improve on their lap times with both Carlin drivers sticking to their 14th and 15th grid slots for tomorrow’s feature race. 

Since there is the threat of wet weather all throughout the race weekend, it may help both Daruvala and Tsunoda to make up ground in the feature race which will run around 162km (37 laps) or 60 minutes with a mandatory pitstop. And if either of them finish in the Top 8, they could benefit with a better starting position for the sprint race as the top eight finishers from the feature race will line up in a reversed order. 

While it looks like another weekend starting off on the backfoot for Jehan Daruvala, a potential wet race could serve up some opportunities. The feature race will give us the answers when it commences on Saturday at 8:15pm (IST).

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