Jehan Daruvala scores maiden Formula Car victory in New Zealand

It wasn’t all a smooth cakewalk to the podium for Jehan Daruvala though. At his debut in the Toyota Racing Series at the Ruapuna Park circuit, he took time to come up to speed in practice and some downtime due to electrical issues did not help his situation. In Qualifying 1 Jehan managed eighth position. Qualifying 2 proved to be worse as the session was red flagged for a brief period. Most drivers used this period to change from wet tyres to slicks (dry tyres) but Jehan opted to remain on his wet set. This initially proved to be the right decision as, once the session started, Jehan was soon fastest. However the track dried faster than he had expected and he fell rapidly down the timesheets, ultimately qualifying fifteenth out of eighteen racers.

Jehan lost a position at the start of Race 1 but soon recovered and had a straightforward race to finish eighth. The reverse of the top eight would be the starting positions for Race 2. Jehan therefore started on pole for Race 2, but made one of his worst starts and fell down all the way to ninth position. The situation got even worse for Jehan after he was hit from behind under a yellow flag and he fell to sixteenth. He made his way back to finish in thirteenth position.

Jehan was most determined to make the most of Race 3 starting in fifteenth. The race started in damp conditions with all drivers on slick tyres.  After losing slightly as the lights went out, Jehan soon made up a couple of positions. The consistent drizzle on track increased and Jehan’s team mate – Pedro Piquet (Son of Former F1 world champ – Nelson Piquet) pitted for wet tyres. He gained a lot of time on wet tyres and the team soon called Jehan into the pits as well. After the pit stop, Jehan was one lap behind race leader Lando Norris. Jehan on wet tyres started carving his way up the field as he first unlapped himself from the race leader and then started overtaking others. A few drivers in front, also pitted for wet tyres which gave Jehan a further advantage.

The turning point for Jehan came when the safety car was deployed negating the advantage of the drivers in front. All the drivers were bunched up and only Pedro Piquet was on wet tyres in front of Jehan. The safety car pulled into the pits and Jehan did not put a foot wrong. He overtook Pedro and then one by one overtook the others, including some from around the outside of the hairpin corner. Within one lap, Jehan had moved from seventh to first and continued to pull away.

The safety car was deployed once again, and soon the race was stopped, earning Jehan his maiden victory in Formula Cars as he won the premier race of the entire weekend – the Lady Wigram Trophy. Illustrious Formula 1 greats like Jackie Stewart, Jack Brabham, Stirling Moss, Jim Clark and Bruce McLaren were all former winners of the Lady Wigram Trophy.

Jehan will continue with his participation in the rest of the Toyota Racing Series, which has one of its toughest driver line ups. Lando Norris (Former World Karting Champion and Current F4 Champion), Pedro Piquet (2 Time Brazilian F3 Champion and son of F1 World Champ – Nelson Piquet), Guanyu Zhou (Ferrari Academy Racer), Artem Markelov (GP2 racer) , etc. are some of the notable names on the grid. The next race will be this coming weekend at the Teretonga Park Raceway.