07India’s racing champion and pride of the community, Jehan Daruvala opened his bid for the Formula 2 title with a second-placed finish in the Sprint race of the championship’s first round in Sakhir, Bahrain, on 20^th March, 2022. The 23-year-old Mumbai resident, who races for Prema Racing and is a member of the Red Bull Junior Team, had started fourth, after qualifying seventh, under the Championship’s reverse grid rules.

Jehan’s season-opening podium was founded on a good start. He was up to third straight away and, after fending off fellow Red Bull junior Liam Lawson in the Carlin, he set about in pursuit of second-placed Ralph Boschung. The safety car was deployed on lap 3 to clear away the stranded Hitech of Marcus Armstrong. It bunched up the field but Jehan, who took his first F2 win in Bahrain in 2020, held position, once again prevailing in a wheel-to-wheel battle with Lawson. But Jehan’s expertise finally saw him cross the line in second place, less than two seconds behind Verschoor.

Jehan said, “Finishing second in the first race of the year is a good start. I think we had the pace to fight for the win. Unfortunately, I mistimed the Virtual Safety Car restart which lost us a lot of time and eventually cost us the win. But overall, we have a really good car and I’m quite pleased with our start to the season.”

Jehan now heads into Sunday’s feature race, which he will start from seventh, where he qualified. He hopes for another good win to round out an encouraging season-opening weekend, as he eyes a step-up to F1 in 2023, which would make him only the third Indian to compete in motorsport’s top tier.