India's Jehan Daruvala took his maiden victory in the 2018 FIA Formula 3 European Championship at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. The Sahara driver started the race on pole, but a slow start pushed him to P3 on the opening lap. However, the driver made a stellar recovery in the remainder of Race 1 for the weekend, taking the second win of his career.
Having taken the pole by a 0.010s margin, a sluggish start from Daruvala dropped him down to third behind points leader Marcus Armstrong who took the lead, while Alex Palou followed soon taking P2. Daruvala, who drives for Carlin Racing held on to P3 looking for that advantage to re-take the lead.
undefinedP1 in Race 1 at Spa ???????????? #FIA #F3 #SFIA #Carlin #P1 pic.twitter.com/0rOdiZb01b
— Jehan Daruvala (@DaruvalaJehan) July 27, 2018
The new race leader Armstrong couldn't hold on to the lead for long though and lost out to Palou at the exit of the Raidillon, while Daruvala slipstreamed his way into second place over Armstrong. However, that advantage was yet to come that made way for the Carlin Racing driver's first win of the season.
A contact between drivers Nikita Troitskiy and Sacha Fenestraz, left the former with suspension damage and made way for the safety car on the track. At the restart of the race, Daruvala who was charging on Palou managed to pass the race leader on the Kemmel straight, retaking the lead.
With four laps to go, Jehan had built a significant lead over Palou and finally crossed the chequered flag with a gap of 3.235s. This is Jehan's second win of his career, after taking his maiden win during last year's Norisring round.
Finishing second and third were Palou and Ralf Aron, while Red Bull protege Dan Ticktum finished fourth, ahead of Mick Schumacher taking fifth. Frontrunner Marcus Armstrong retired from the race, while Guanyu Zhou was the second retirement.
The Spa-Francorchamps round has two more races to go this weekend. Will Jehan be able to retain his dominance.
