After a tough season in the FIA European F3, 20-year-old Indian driver Jehan Daruvala will now be part of the new FIA F3 championship that will replace the GP3 series for the 2019 season as he tries to forge his way into the world of Formula One.
A lot is riding on Daruvala to keep the country on the Formula One map, especially after India’s last connection to the world of F1 ended midway through last year when the Vijay Mallya owned Force India F1 team, with whom the Mumbai-based driver has been associated with since 2011, went out of business.
However, one good news for Daruvala is that he is close to an agreement to still be connected with the Racing Point F1 team, the entity that took over the erstwhile Force India team, where he will still be able to have some chance to do simulator sessions and work closely with an F1 team.
Switching teams
For 2019, Daruvala will switch from Carlin Racing to Prema Racing, a powerhouse team in the junior single-seater categories.
Speaking to The Hindu, Daruvala said: “This could be a defining season for me. If everything shapes up well, I honestly want to be fighting for the title this year.”
Despite two years already in the European F3, Daruvala has opted to stick with the new F3 championship than moving up to F2.
“I had a chance to do F2 but I have chosen to do one more year in F3 because I get to be with a top team like Prema than to do F2 just for the sake of it.”
An advantage of doing the new F3 series will be that it will be run as a support to the F1 races and gives an opportunity to showcase his talent.
“While it is a bigger stage, I don’t think it makes much of a difference for me once the racing starts. What will help is the fact that we will be racing with spec cars including the halo-protection device, run on Pirelli tyres and unlimited DRS, which would be a good learning opportunity for me,” said Daruvala.
The first half of last year was a good one for Daruvala, where he was just 42.5 points behind the championship leader. However, the second half of the season was far from ideal where he could add only 25 points to his tally.
“Throughout the year we were not good enough to fight with Prema or Motopark and the top six were mostly between those drivers. I feel I improved in terms of speed and consistency last year though in the second half we had some bad luck through suspension failures and crashes that hurt us,” explained Daruvala about his 2018 season where he had four podiums and a victory.