(Motorsports news) Jehan Daruvala started strong with a 2nd place finish in the first sprint race of the season but couldn’t capitalise in the feature race where he finished a low 14th. He was a second behind the first race winner Richard Verschoor who led the race from start to finish as Daruvala held off Liam Lawson also to claim a valuable podium.
Starting in fourth position for the sprint race after he qualified in 7th for the feature race, Daruvala managed to move one place up to third position at the end of lap 1. For most of the 23-lap sprint race, it was more of a waiting game for the tyre temperature to kick in, and on lap 16 of 23, Daruala made his instinctive move on Ralph Boschung for second place. But immediately after the overtake, the virtual safety car came out, and when it ended, Boschung reclaimed his second place from Daruvala.
The Indian driver swapped places a lap later in what was an intense battle with the Campos racing man. Unfortunately, the race ended under the virtual safety car period and it cost Daruvala a potential shot at the win as the Indian driver was less than 2 seconds behind the race winner and was lapping much quicker than Richard Verschoor of Trident.
Jehan Daruvala, finished in 14th position in an incident-packed feature race at Bahrain as Theo Pourchaire won the race, followed by Liam Lawson who subsequently leads the World Championship after round one. The downward spiral for Daruvala began right from the word go, as he dropped from seventh all the way to 11th at the end of lap 1. It was down to the fact that the Indian driver was starting on a harder compound of tyres compared to those around him, and was playing the long strategy game which obviously backfired for him.
By the halfway, Daruvala made his mandatory pitstop for soft tyres and was set to use that pace advantage to make his way up the field. Unfortunately any chances of making up time on the soft compound tyres were eliminated before it even materialised when the Indian driver’s front wings was damaged in an intense battle with Roy Nissany. This forced him to pit for a new front wing, dropping him right at the tail end of the field and also ending any chances for a good points haul.
Overall, it was a mixed start to Jehan Daruvala’s 2022 F2 campaign but if the Indian driver needs to win the Championship then a level of consistency is required in his driving. It won’t be too long of a wait before racing action kicks off again at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia for the second round of the season scheduled to run from March 25-27.
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