Jehan Daruvala secured a back-to-back podium finish in Formula 3 race at the French Gran Prix last weekend. This would be constituted as his second consecutive win in the F3. His win was also witnessed by the F1 crowd, who were gathered at Circuit Paul Ricard, Le Castellet. Jehan has now moved up to second place in the championship standings.
The 20-year-old was on provisional pole, dominating the entire qualifying session but was pushed down by mere eight-hundredths of a second by Jake Hughes. And when the lights went out, he further fell down the position as Pedro Piquet took advantage of Jehan’s bad start in the front row. Jehan soon got past the Brazilian but in the meantime, pole sitter, Jake Hughes managed to pull away by over 2 seconds. Within the DRS range, Jehan put down some blistering laps, with a brilliant move to the inside of Hughes from four car lengths behind.
After grabbing the lead, Jehan had to work hard as Hughes tailed him while exiting the corner. In the end, the Mumbai boy retained the lead while also successfully managing to open a gap behind him. Jehan crossed the line 2.8 seconds clear of his teammate Robert Shwartzman, who had also managed to gain a position and finished second ahead of Piquet.
In the second race, the Prema Racing driver started eighth on the grid but fought his way up to the second place. At the end of the race two, Jehan scored a podium finish; he wased in third position behind teammate Shwartzman and Piquet.
After Shwartzman’s early lead, Daruvala made a clean pass on the Tsunoda to grab the second place. It appeared to be another PREMA one-two but Piquet got within DRS range and with just one lap remaining, the Trident driver reclaimed the second position down the pit straight.
Now, at the end of the race weekend, Shwartzman is leading the championship standings with 70 points ahead of Jehan who trails by 12 points. The next race will take place in Austria at the Red Bull Ring circuit in Spielberg where Jehan will be looking to bag another win to gain the championship lead.
