Category: Indians Abroad

THOUGHTS FROM TSUNODA, MAZEPIN AND DARUVALA

FIA Formula 2: Hello and welcome to the press conference with the top three qualifiers for this weekend’s FIA Formula 2 Feature Race here at Sakhir. We are joined by pole-sitter Yuki Tsunoda for Carlin, in second place is Nikita Mazepin for Hitech Grand Prix, and third is Jehan Daruvala, also for Carlin. Yuki you really needed this pole after last weekend, and you delivered under pressure. Just how happy are you with today’s result?

Yuki Tsunoda: Like you said, I’m really happy. Especially from last week in Qualifying. I did a big mistake and I felt really sorry for the team. I’m really happy with the drive to say thanks to Carlin for today, for the pole. I’m really happy, and a really big thanks to Carlin.

FIA Formula 2: I was going to ask you about the team actually, with both yourself and Jehan up here. Quick in practice, quick last week here. Do you think you’ve got the quickest car for the race as well?

Yuki: I really, fully, trust my team. Especially the engineers and mechanics. I think we’ll also have a strong pace as well for tomorrow. But you can never expect much for tomorrows race. It’s a different track, well a different layout. I think there’ll be a lot of overtakes. You can never expect. We don’t know how we’re going to be tomorrow on the pace. I’ll just do my job and we’ll see what’s going to happen.

FIA Formula 2: Good luck tomorrow, thank you. Nikita, second place matches your best result in Formula 2, which you achieved at Spa this year, I think. Just how good did the car feel out there today?

Nikita Mazepin: I think we were strong. Obviously, it’s a new track and let’s say a pretty strange one. It reminds me of going back to karting days when the lap was a minute or so. You obviously cross the start/finish line a lot quicker. There’s also a lot more cars around you, and everything is just different. It’s a nice challenge for everyone. It’s the closing weekend of 2020, so it’s nice to get a bit of spice there. In regard to Qualifying, I think I started off pretty calm, and it became pretty messy towards the end. We were very close, I think the pace looked strong, but not close enough. However, tomorrow is the big day I believe.

FIA Formula 2: It is indeed. I know you didn’t quite get pole, but you are still just in the title fight. With Callum (Ilott) starting in ninth and Mick (Schumacher) all the way back in at least 18th, it could be blown wide open tomorrow. Had you written your chances off coming into this weekend? Do you like them a bit more now?

Nikita: I think you know me reasonably well by now. There is no way I’m going to be writing the chances off for myself before the mathematical chances are out. That’s for sure. To be honest, I don’t want to sound like I’m the wrong man for the job but I’m not really thinking about the title. I’m just enjoying my last moments with my team. Like I said, it’s the closing weekend. I’m definite what I’m going to be doing next year, and the guys are doing a fantastic job. I’m just enjoying the Qualifying that I’ve done with Hitech GP.

FIA Formula 2: Well done today and good luck tomorrow. Jehan, your first podium last weekend and now another top three Qualifying performance to go with Sochi. You’re in really good form at the moment.

Jehan Daruvala: Yeah, like I said last week, things are starting to come together. Last week we were really strong as well, both me and Yuki. We were both out of place in Qualifying. We hit the ground running in practice and we both did a couple of good laps in Qualifying. It feels good to start in the top three. Let’s see what we can do tomorrow.

FIA Formula 2: You said you both did good laps – the gap to Nikita was just nine thousandths of a second. We knew it would be close around here anyway, but do you think you left that out there somewhere?

Jehan: Yeah, I was kind of under-powered on the acceleration out of Turn 1, and I didn’t make the most of it. The next lap I found almost six or seven hundredths in the first sector, but the rears were done by then. I think pole was definitely a little bit out of reach, but a front row lock out for the team was possible.

FIA Formula 2: We’ll see how tomorrow goes for you. Yuki, just returning to you. You need a perfect weekend to be able to have any chance of winning the Championship. You’ve done the first part of that. You mentioned that you think the race will be difficult – how hard do you think it will be if you’re leading into Turn 1? Are we going to see a lot of slipstreaming and overtaking tomorrow?

Yuki: I don’t think so, well of course there’ll be overtakes, but I think the FIA made the distance of the DRS zone a little bit shorter into Turn 1, so that will cause a few difficulties compared to last week. There are only a few corners in the middle sector and it’s hard to make a gap from those corners. Still, I think there’ll be a lot of overtakes. I’ll just do my job. In this Qualifying, I think my Sector 2 was really good compared to others. I think that makes a big difference in my lap time compared to others. I have pretty good confidence in the pace. Like I’ve said, the race pace at Carlin last week was really strong, so we’ll just do our jobs.

Bahrain, 28 Nov 2020: Indian racing star, Jehan Daruvala earned his maiden FIA Formula 2 podium at the Bahrain Grand Prix Support Race. The Red Bull Racing Junior is the first Indian to stand on the podium in an FIA Formula 2 Race, in the current iteration of the championship.

For the record the first of the double header’s, Feature race produced a win for Felipe Drugovich. Mick Schumacher the championship leader finished fourth, with challenger Callum Ilott taking a second to reduce the gap to 12 points with one Feature race and two Sprint races left in the season.

The F2 season moved to Sakhir, Bahrain for the last 2 rounds of the F2 championship, and Jehan immediately showed his pace in the only practice session. In the last 15 minutes, Jehan posted a lap time of 1:42.782 to go fastest. With just 5 minutes left, Nikita Mazepin of Russia, went faster by a mere 0.122.

The top Indian racer from Mumbai redeemed the third place in the penultimate round to earn a valuable 15 points that pulled him to 12th place among 25 drivers after he was languishing in the bottom half. He was plagued by reliability issues and bad starts early in the season. The podium is a late consolation for the rookie, who showed enough promise in F3 last year to be among the front runners but could not achieve up to his potential due to the under-performing car, but he never once complained. He has only a couple of points less than what Mick Schumacher, the championship leader, had as a rookie last year at this stage. The thought put out by a senior motorsports journalist Vinayak Pandey provides hope for future as the Indian has raw pace and is no less than any of his peers, provided he gets a car that is competitive.

Qualifying threatened to completely undo all of Jehan’s efforts. He faced traffic on his quick laps, which allowed him to post a time, only quick enough for eighth on the grid, 2 places ahead of Championship leader, Mick Schumacher. Callum Ilott of Great Britain earned another pole position.

Jehan made an excellent start for the Feature Race (Race 1) from eighth. He gained 2 places and stayed in a sixth for a few laps. Jehan and other racers on the Medium compound of tyre, then seemed to struggle against those on the Hard Compound. Lap 5 saw Jehan lose 2 places & was forced off the circuit. The resulting loss of speed lost him more positions. Jehan stayed in tenth for a few laps before pitting to change tyres.

The 22 year old Indian emerged from the pits down in 18^th place. He then reeled of a series of quick laps to climb up the order. He gained more positions as others pitted and was running sixth by lap 19 of the 32 lap race. Jehan soon overtook multiple race winner Robert Shwartzman to move upto fifth. Race leader Mick Schumacher then took his mandatory pit stop. Jehan’s blistering pace after his own pitstop meant that Schumacher emerged from the pits behind Jehan, who was now running third.

The main risk was that Schumacher had tyres which were many laps fresher than Jehan. The two were evenly matched for at least another six laps, before Schumacher now in his second season started closing the gap to Jehan. Schumacher soon brought the gap down from 2 seconds to around 1.5 seconds. Besides much fresher tyres, Schumacher was also now on the faster Medium compound and charged to reduce the gap down to 0.7 seconds with 5 laps remaining. Unfortunately for the Indian, this meant that Schumacher was now also able to use his DRS (Drag Reduction System) which gave him extra speed on 3 straights around the F1 circuit. It seemed only a matter of corners before Schumacher would overtake Jehan. However in a nail biting few laps, Jehan without the option of DRS and a tyre disadvantage drove one of his best races of the season. With 3 laps to go, Jehan had to defend aggressively into the first corner, both drivers were side by side for a few corners but Jehan was not giving up in spite of his disadvantage. He held his nerve and placed his Carlin car in exactly the right places, preventing Schumacher from getting ahead.

2 laps before the end of the race, Schumacher momentarily got ahead of Jehan, but the Indian was not going to allow that and he braked late, to get the position back. Jehan’s excellent racing caused Schumacher to make a couple of mistakes. This allowed Jehan room to breathe. He continued his intelligent drive to increase the gap and crossed the line 0.894 seconds ahead of Schumacher, to earn a really well deserved third place. Brazilian Felipe Drugovich won the race ahead of Callum Ilott.

Jehan was the 2^nd runner up in the FIA Formula 3 Championship last year. He earns his maiden FIA Formula 2 podium, in his first season in the ultra-competitive championship, which has seen fifteen other racers stand on the podium! Jehan’s achievement is also the first podium, by an Indian in the current iteration of the FIA Formula 2 Championship.