Jehan Daruvala bags third place in Belgium

Indian race driver Jehan Daruvala finished Race 1 in the third spot in the FIA Formula 3 Championship at Spa-Francorchamps (Belgium) on Saturday.

The F3 Championship is the support race for the Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix on Sunday.

PREMA Racing’s Daruvala had bagged pole position for the race but was overtaken by Trident’s Pedro Piquet in the very first lap, with the latter emerging as the winner. Daruvala’s team-mate Robert Shwartzman finished second.

Piquet attempted an overtake on Daruvala, who managed to cling on to the position at the first corner. A couple of racing incidents forced the Virtual Safety Car (VSC) to be issued but Piquet had emerged ahead of Daruvala and he was unable to get the position back. Eventually, Shwartzman went past Daruvala and pushed the latter to the third spot.

Daruvala’s third place finish takes him back ahead of Juri Vips in the race for the title, but Shwartzman still leads the championship. Shwartzman has 142 points and Daruvala is on 123, while Vips is on 122.

Race 2 will be on Sunday.

Daruvala said: “Firstly, on lap one, with heavy fuel I bottomed out a lot through Eau Rouge and Pedro just basically flew by me. Actually, on the first lap I felt pretty confident. I could stay pretty close to him, but then the VSC came out in the last chicane and I lost a lot of time.

“I knew that with VSC, when the race restarts, the guys behind me are going to have DRS. So it was going to be quite tricky for me. That's basically what happened. I allowed Leo (Pulcini) to go by me hoping I could use the DRS to get ahead of him, but it didn't really work out that way.

“I worked my way back to second but to be honest I just wasn't fast enough to fight for the win. I still got good points and let's see what I can do tomorrow (Sunday),” he added.

FIA Formula 3 Round 6 – Race 1 provisional classification

DRIVER TEAM
1 Pedro Piquet Trident
2 Robert Shwartzman PREMA Racing
3 Jehan Daruvala PREMA Racing
4 Christian Lundgaard ART Grand Prix
5 Juri Vips Hitech Grand Prix
6 Yuki Tsunoda Jenzer Motorsport
7 Leonardo Pulcini Hitech Grand Prix
8 Marcus Armstrong PREMA Racing
9 Max Fewtrell ART Grand Prix
10 David Beckmann ART Grand Prix
11 Teppei Natori Carlin Buzz Racing
12 Liam Lawson MP Motorsport
13 Logan Sargeant Carlin Buzz Racing
14 Keyvan Andres HWA RACELAB
15 Ye Yifei Hitech Grand Prix
16 Giorgio Carrara Jenzer Motorsport
17 Richard Verschoor MP Motorsport
18 Felipe Drugovich Carlin Buzz Racing
19 Niko Kari Trident
20 Bent Viscaal HWA RACELAB
21 Jake Hughes HWA RACELAB
22 Lirim Zendeli Sauber Junior Team by Charouz
23 Andreas Estner Jenzer Motorsport
24 Simo Laaksonen MP Motorsport
25 Sebastian Fernandez Campos Racing
26 Raoul Hyman Sauber Junior Team by Charouz
27 Fabio Scherer Sauber Junior Team by Charouz
28 Alessio Deledda Campos Racing
29 Devlin DeFrancesco Trident

NOT CLASSIFIED

Alex Peroni Campos Racing