Young Indian racer Jehan Daruvala could not make the most of his pole position as he settled for a third-place finish in round six of the FIA Formula 3 championship but the podium performance pushed him to number two in the drivers' title race.
Starting from his maiden pole position in the series, Jehan exited the first corner ahead but Pedro Piquet, son of three-time F1 champion Nelson Piquet, took advantage of Indian's slip stream to overtake him after Eau Rouge.
Jehan continued to lose ground and fell all the way to fourth in the race which is a support event to the Formula 1 Belgian Grand Prix.
The Indian pushed hard and was able to move back into second place, behind Piquet. A virtual safety car was declared and the timing of the call affected Jehan, causing him to lose four seconds.
Later, Jehan's Prema teammate, Robert Shwartzman managed to use his DRS (Drag Reduction System) to drive right around Jehan.
The Indian had to settle for third place, behind Shwartzman, while Piquet bagged his maiden win in the FIA F3 championship.
Race 2 starting order is decided on, Race 1 results in reverse order for the top 8. Jehan started sixth and had a good start, quickly moving up into fourth.
Two racers in front of him had an incident and one of the cars while re-joining, came right in front of him. Jehan had to lift off to avoid a collision, which allowed another racer to overtake.
Jehan then got back one position and finished eventually in fifth place. New Zealand’s Marcus Armstrong won the race.
"On the first lap of Race 1, I bottomed quite a lot through Eau Rouge so Piquet flew by me before Les Combes. I was pretty confident I could stay with him, but the virtual safety car came out at the last chicane and somehow I lost a lot of time. I knew that the guys behind me were going to have DRS and it was going to be tricky. Third is not ideal, but it's not bad," said Jehan.
Jehan has moved up to second from third in the championship standings with 129 points behind team mate Shwartzman (152).
There are still two rounds remaining and the next race will be held alongside the Italian Grand Prix.
