Daruvala’s Guest Column: We were always fighting at the front

Carlins’ Jehan Daruvala took his first podium in Formula 2 in the Feature Race at Sakhir, battling off a stern attack from Championship leader Mick Schumacher in the final laps. Though, his Sunday was slightly more disappointing, as a coming together with Callum Ilott forced him to retire and brought his battle for a second podium to a halt.

The Red Bull junior takes control of this week’s guest column to pen his thoughts on a successful weekend. He takes the positives from the team’s strong pace, discusses his unfortunate retirement, and looks ahead to the final round of the season.

ONE GOOD POINT – CONSISTENT PACE

For me, the best thing about this weekend was that every time I went on track, we had really good pace and could show our hand. The main thing is that we were always fighting at the front and always showed really good pace throughout the weekend.

ONE BAD POINT – SPRINT RACE RETIREMENT

Yesterday’s Sprint Race. I had made a really good start and got up to P3. I then dropped down to P4 as I was just managing my tyres, but unluckily I was then taken out.

I definitely feel like I could have been on the podium again and was thinking that we could have even won that race, so it was disappointing to have had to retire.

WHAT I LEARNED – HEAVY DEGREDATION

We learn a lot every single weekend and we will go back and collect the data now. There was a lot of degradation in the races, which we expected to be honest, so it will be interesting to go back and learn and understand the data.

That way, we can use it to come back next weekend and do even better. Okay, the track layout will be different, but the tarmac will be the same, so the way that the tyres work on the surface should be quite similar.

NEXT TIME OUT - SAKHIR

The weekends are getting better and better for us. The last few rounds I have had the pace to be right at the front and that showed this weekend.

I am going to work hard with the team over the next few days and try to hit the ground running again in the next round. Hopefully, both cars can be fighting at the sharp end of the grid and we can battle for wins and podiums.