Spa-Francorchamps (Belgium): India’s Jehan Daruvala earned his sixth podium of the season and moved up to the second position after round six in the FIA Formula 3 championship here.
Jehan had earlier bagged a sensational pole position, his first race in the series which is a support event to the Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix.
Jehan started well from pole and managed to exit the first corner ahead. However Pedro Piquet, son of three-time Formula One champion Nelson Piquet, took advantage of the Indian’s slip stream to overtake him after Eau Rouge.
Thereafter, Jehan continued to lose ground and fell all the way to fourth.
The Indian then pushed hard and was able to slowly move back into second place, behind Piquet. Unfortunately for Jehan, a Virtual Safety Car was declared and the timing of the call caused him to lose four seconds.
Later, Jehan’s Prema teammate Robert Shwartzman managed to use his DRS (Drag Reduction System) to drive right around Jehan.
Although the Indian tried to push hard again, he had to settle for third place, behind Shwartzman, while Piquet bagged his maiden win in the FIA F3 championship.
Race 2 starting order is decided on Race 1 results in reverse order for the top 8. Jehan started sixth and had a good start, quickly moving up into fourth.
Unfortunately for Jehan though, two racers in front of him had an incident and one of the cars while re-joining came right in front of him.
Jehan had to lift off to avoid a collision, which allowed another racer to overtake. The Indian then got back one position and finished eventually in the fifth place. New Zealand’s Marcus Armstrong won the race.
“On the first lap of Race 1, I bottomed quite a lot through Eau Rouge so Piquet flew by me before Les Combes. I was pretty confident I could stay with him, but the Virtual Safety Car came out at the last chicane and somehow I lost a lot of time. Third is not ideal, but it’s not bad,” Jehan said.
Jehan moved up from third to second position in the championship standings with two rounds remaining.
PTI
