Indian racer Jehan Daruval, who drives for Carlin Racing, completed an exhilarating pole to flag victory to claim his first win this season in the FIA Formula 3 European Championship at Spa, Belgium, on Friday.
The Force India junior driver also had the fastest lap to his name in race one of the weekend at the legendary Spa Francorchamps circuit. The teenager from Mumbai had a tense qualifying and began setting lap times with only five minutes left for the session to end. However, he recovered well to claim pole position.
He lost ground at start the race and by the first corner, he fell to third behind Marcus Armstrong and Alex Palou. But he muscled his way into second out of the iconic Eau Rouge corner, before the safety car came out for two laps.
Force India junior and Carlin's Jehan Daruvala takes his first #FIAF3 win of the 2018 season - career's second in a thrilling Race 1 at Spa-Francorchamps: https://t.co/BeT2c1NNDS #F3 @DaruvalaJehan @fiaf3europe @ForceIndiaF1 pic.twitter.com/GFXAgKxuMY
— Darshan Chokhani (@DarshanChokhani) July 27, 2018
When the race restarted, he then went on to grab the lead overtaking Palou on the Kemmel straight, and maintained his lead to avoid being overtaken once again.
The former CIK FIA Asia Pacific Karting Champion continued his dominance over the rest of the field, pulling out over two-tenths of a lap over everyone else.
The Indian eventually won the race with a comfortable margin of 3.2 seconds ahead of Alex Palou and a massive 11.9 seconds ahead of Estonian racer, Ralf Aron in third.
The victory was also his fourth podium of 2018 in the FIA F3 series.