For a brief few moments, it looked like Jehan Daruvala was all set to claim his first F2 victory this season. Hours after the Austrian GP feature race, on-track winner Richard Verschoor was disqualified, leaving second-placed Daruvala perfectly positioned to inherit victory.
However, Daruvala himself was later handed a hefty penalty for an infringement of the sporting regulations, pushing him out of the points. We explain what happened.
- Prema found guilty of drying grid slot
- Daruvala now fourth in championship
Daruvala goes from P11 to P2 in F2 Austrian GP
After a disappointing qualifying left him starting from 11th on the grid, Daruvala knew he’d have to gamble on strategy if he wanted a strong result. Timely rainfall gave him that opportunity, and he opted to start the race on slick tyres. The track was still quite damp, but there was a dry line beginning to form.
The gamble paid off and Daruvala made some rapid progress up the field. He benefitted from Roberto Merhi’s time penalty to finish second.
Daruvala handed penalty
After the race, on-track winner Verschoor was disqualified after the Trident team was unable to provide the required post-race fuel sample for scrutineering. The Dutch driver had stopped on track, mid-way through his cooldown lap.
Daruvala would have inherited victory, but he was handed a drive-through penalty moments later. The stewards found that Prema attempted to dry the track surface at his grid slot ahead of the race, which breaches the sporting regulations. “As a performance advantage can never be ruled out in such a case, the mere attempt to alter the track surface is prohibited, irrespective of any success,” the stewards’ official report stated.
Since the race was already over and Daruvala couldn’t serve the drive-through penalty, he was handed a 20-second time penalty instead, dropping him down to 12th place. This promoted Logan Sargeant to victory.
Despite bagging a string of podiums in the sprint races this year, Daruvala has also been hit with bad luck on more than one occasion. An ill-timed Safety Car cost him potential victory in Imola, and he suffered an electrical issue in Barcelona.
“I’m absolutely gutted. All season luck has been against us and just when I thought things were finally going our way, we get hit with a penalty,” Daruvala said.
“We did everything right today. I was expecting a tough race from 11th on the grid and, while it was tricky, we read the conditions perfectly today. The team made the right strategy call on the tyres and I was able to maximise it with my pace in the wet. It’s difficult to find the positives, after having a result we fought hard for taken away from us in this fashion. We could have taken big points off our rivals today, but I can still take encouragement from my pace today. We now have a weekend off before the next run of back-to-back races, and it’s now full focus on Paul Ricard and Budapest. We just need to keep pushing and I’m sure our day will come.”
2022 F2 championship standings
With no points collected in Austria, Daruvala drops to fourth in the overall standings. He’s 34 points behind third-placed Theo Pourchaire, 35 points behind second-place Sargeant and 74 points behind leader Felipe Drugovich.
