Daruvala first Indian to win F2 race; Schumacher bags title
NEW DELHI: Jehan Daruvala became the first Indian to win in Formula 2—considered the stepping stone to Formula 1— when he clinched the sprint race in Bahrain on Sunday.
The 22-year-old finished 3.5 seconds ahead of Carlin teammate Yuki Tsunoda of Japan and Britain’s Dan Ticktum. Mick Schumacher, son of seven-time F1 world champion Michael, finished 18th but won the 2020 championship with 205 points from Britain’s Callum Ilott (201), who was 10th in the 34-lap support race for F1’s Sakhir GP.
Starting from second in the final race of the season, Daruvala was up alongside pole-sitter Ticktum, who squeezed the Indian on the inside of Turn 1 which allowed Schumacher, who started third, to go around the outside of both of them.
Ticktum regained lead, followed by Schumacher and Daruvala in third. But a few corners later, the Carlin racer made a move on Schumacher, who had flat-spotted his tyres on Lap 1, to get into second. A few laps later Schumacher passed Daruvala to relegate him to third but the Mumbaikar did not give up. A thrilling battled ensued and eventually Daruvala got past Schumacher once again to get back second.
The Indian then reeled off a series of quick laps to catch race leader Ticktum. However, Daruvala was unable to overtake. Daruvala kept his cool and kept up the pressure, forcing the race leader to commit mistakes.
Daruvala made the move to gey past Ticktum and grab the race lead with less than 10 laps to go. Thereafter, Daruvala drove steadily to open up a gap with the rest of the field and took the chequered flag to win his maiden Formula 2 race.
“Motorsport is pretty big in India. We obviously have a lot of people so I have a big fan base back home,” said Daruvala, who finished in 12th position with 72 points in the curtailed season.
The Indian had a tough first half of the season but kept improving in the second half, finishing in the points regularly. Daruvala also clinched his maiden F2 podium in the feature race on the same circuit last weekend. “My goal at the end of the day is to do myself proud but also do my country proud and to prove to people back home that even though we don’t have the same facilities and stuff that guys have in Europe, as long as you can work hard you can fight right at the sharp end of the grid,” Daruvala added.