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Jehan Daruvala: Indian F2 Protégé and F1 Hope


23 year young Jehan Daruvala, a boy who rose from the karting tracks in Mumbai to drive a McLaren at Silverstone, be it a test but it was some moment for Indian F1 fans. He drove 130 laps around the Silverstone track over two days of testing. He's our hope to see an Indian race again in F1. But in this blog I won't talk about his history and all that one can read on his Wikipedia page, we'll talk about the impact.


Jehan has become the sole reason for me to watch Formula 2, and that's even more fun for me because of how much of a sports enthusiast I am. The schedule for me for the weekend  goes like this: F2 Qualification, F1 Practices on Friday, F2 Sprint and F1 Qualification on Saturday, and both the main races on Sunday. The wait to watch Jehan drive and  hoping for a great race and to see him and that Indian flag on the podium. 


As I write this, Jehan is driving his Prema Racing Car from P11 to a fantastic P2 in the Austrian GP. Prema Racing has given the motorsport world drivers like Mick Schumacher, Yuki Tsunoda, and Zhou Guanyu. 
It's the thrill of F2 that makes it interesting to watch. All the young academy drivers drive cars with almost similar engines and rules to Formula 1. Jehan himself is a Red Bull Academy driver and looks forward to driving a Red Bull engined car in Formula 1, most probably Alpha Tauri and maybe McLaren if they need someone to replace Dan Ricciardo .

Kush Maini and his brother Arjun Maini(Right to Left), two brothers representing India in the motorsport field, are currently driving in Formula 3. 
 
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There is the Mahindra Racing Team in Formula E, which will have a home Grand Prix in India in Hyderabad in 2022. The scope is there. 



It only needs one Indian to triumph in a particular field, and that would bring millions of people into it and billions of people supporting that sport in the country. It happened with Kapil Dev and cricket (not to discredit the whole team) and in recent times we can see what happened with Neeraj Chopra and javelin. All we can hope is that Jehan excels in his field and wins a number of Grand Prix, and in no time you will see karting tracks full of young drivers full of ambition of driving for India in F1.
 
There is no denying that F1 is an expensive sport to pursue as a career and only privileged ones are currently out there on karting tracks, but then we see the likes of Lewis Hamilton and Sergio Perez,  these guys who started from the bottom and now they are here. 

All a person needs is a "DRIVE TO SURVIVE".
 

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