European Formula 3 was Jehan Daruvala’s biggest test in his racing career so far, and while he scored very well, there always seems to be someone who scores higher.
Given how long it’s been since India had Formula 1 aspirants, people following motorsport in India stayed quietly optimistic when Jehan Daruvala came on the scene as a teenage karting sensation.
Important event wins, lap records and the kind of preparation that no other motorsport professional before him had received all made people sit up and take notice, as they did when he made an impressive racing debut in 2015. Since then, it’s become a little difficult to entirely remove expectation from the equation when talking about the Mumbai native and his career path, which has seemed F1 bound ever since he became the sole remaining one-in-a-billion contender in Force India’s quest to put an Indian into F1.
Even though Formula Renault, as well European Formula 3 – of which he’s just completed maiden season – are still miles away from the F1 dream, Daruvala has spent the better part of these last three seasons up against the cream of the world’s junior drivers. Many of them are F1 hopefuls just like him, and in what is a double-edged sword, one of them is a junior racing superstar whose career would be deemed a disappointment if he didn’t end up an F1 champion someday.
Lando Norris, two years younger than the 19-year-old Daruvala, is a McLaren young driver in the same way that Lewis Hamilton once was and has pretty much won everything there is to win at this point. Racing for Carling Racing, the Briton won this year’s European F3 title in convincing fashion, while Daruvala finished sixth in the points standings.
Of course, things are relative, and one could even call Norris a slouch if you compare him to Max Verstappen – the poster boy for achievement at a young age. All the drivers come from different backgrounds with different kinds of backing as well. Rather than harp on about that, why not just take a closer look at Daruvala’s first European F3 season without comparing it to someone else’s? Because he’s hasn’t appeared like a fish out of water. A recurring pattern throughout Daruvala’s racing career so far, as well as in F3, has been his willingness to race hard against his opponents and almost always make up places. It’s something he had to do more than a few times due to the way the grid positions are decided. An F3 round consists of two qualifying sessions and three races. One qualifying session decides a driver’s starting position in the first race and a driver’s two fastest times in the second qualifying session determine the start order in the second and third. Drivers are always kept on their toes.
And Daruvala often found his lack of track knowledge at many of the venues to be detrimental to a good start position.
He did, however, make a mark early in the season at Monza, where he secured a pole position and almost converted it to a win too – but was narrowly beaten to the line by Norris. Daruvala had previously stated that his aim in his first F3 season was to finish within the top five. That would mean consistent podiums and top-five finishes. Daruvala managed three podiums (one of them a win) and ten top-five finishes throughout the ten-round, 30-race season. There were one too many finishes near the bottom of, or outside, the top-ten but Daruvala did manage to finish every single race of the season. And that means invaluable experience in a racing series that’s considered invaluable preparation for anyone thinking of a serious career in motorsport.
Invaluable not just because of the amount of time spent in practice, qualifying and racing on both F1 and other challenging tracks, but also because of how much a driver will learn about professional motorsport itself. European F3 is in many ways ‘mini F1.’ While there is a single chassis supplier, there are different engine suppliers and the regulations are open to an extent. This is all set to change soon, much to the dismay of those who have followed F3 since it became a breeding ground for future F1 stars, but for now it’s serving Daruvala’s purpose well – who will also compete in the Macau Grand Prix this year.
Where Daruvala goes from here, however, is a bit unclear. Does he use the experience gained to attempt a better second season or be mindful of how time sensitive F1 has become – particularly since Verstappen – and look for a Formula 2 drive? F2 is the next logical step and is a direct feeder series to F1 and runs most of its races on F1 weekends, thereby giving team bosses a much better view of who could be their future.
It’s not an easy decision for Daruvala to make, and one that he should definitely not make in haste. And one hopes that his performances so far have been enough to convince Force India that he is still very much worth keeping on as an academy driver – and for Vijay Mallya to keep his word about seeing him through to F1 one day. Of course, there’s so much uncertainty around Mallya himself these days, and the team’s ownership, but let’s not discuss that at this point. Let’s just be glad that we still have something pretty positive to talk about regarding an Indian hopeful for F1. So far he’s progressed from karting to car racing in an unhurried and progressive manner that has borne some very decent results. There’s room for improvement too, of course, even Lewis Hamilton feels so after 62 wins in F1 and a record 72 poles, but Daruvala needs to find whatever step will work best for him. He appears to have a sound head on his shoulders and good counsel to fall back on, so here’s hoping his next step is the right one.
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