PREMA Racing’s Jehan Daruvala said his eighth- and seventh-place finishes at Silverstone were ‘not the results we wanted as he failed to finish in the top five in either race of a weekend for the first time in the 2022 FIA Formula 2 Championship season.
Daruvala qualified 10th on Friday, a result that gave him the reverse-grid pole for Saturday’s Sprint Race.
But rain fell ahead of the race, and because of a misguided set-up, Daruvala plummeted through the pack after losing the lead to Enzo Fittipaldi at the end of Lap 5.
The Indian driver ultimately came home eighth, while team mate Dennis Hauger wound up 15th.
Daruvala opted for a longer first stint on Sunday, switching from the hard tyres to the softs on Lap 23 of the 29-lap Feature Race. Having returned to the track in a net eighth place, Daruvala passed Marcus Armstrong at Turn 3 on Lap 26 to take the flag seventh.
Despite scoring points in both races, Daruvala relinquished third in the standings to Logan Sargeant, who took his maiden win in the Feature Race. This leaves the PREMA driver fourth overall on 80 points, 68 behind championship leader Felipe Drugovich.
“[They’re] obviously not the results we wanted this weekend,” Daruvala said.
“In Qualifying, we went for an alternate strategy, only going for one push lap on each set, and I think that really backfired on us. I think we had the pace for the first two rows. Starting 10th was definitely not what we wanted.
“Yesterday in the Sprint Race, I think that in the tricky conditions, we didn’t have the right set-up in between wet and dry, and we didn’t have any grip at all.
“Me and Dennis both struggled a lot. At times, we were the two slowest cars on track. It was a very difficult race yesterday.
“But then today we saw good pace. We were the fastest car pretty much all race on the primes. We did the best we could with where we started.
“P7 [gives us] some more points, but we should have had more, and next week in Austria, we need to be fighting for the Feature Race win.”
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