2021 F3 Asian Championship: Mumbai Falcons & Jehan Daruvala finish third overall

Mumbai Falcons will officially go down in history as the first-ever all-Indian team to finish in the top three of an FIA Championship.

The Indian motorsport fraternity had every reason to hold its head high as homegrown racing outfit Mumbai Falcons secured third place overall in the 2021 F3 Asian Championship. The feat was all the more remarkable as this was the team’s maiden international motorsport outing, with ace Indian racing drivers Jehan Daruvala and Kush Maini leading the attack. It’s also worth mentioning that the Falcons missed out on second place in the constructors’ championship by just two points, riding on an impressive nine podium finishes through the championship.

Of these, eight podium finishes were bagged by India’s F1 hopeful Jehan Daruvala alone, who, as a result, finished third overall in the drivers’ championship, behind winner and fellow F2 driver Guanyu Zhou of China and Pierre-Louis Chovet of France. With this, Daruvala has also bagged 12 Super License points, taking his tally up to a total of 33. For those not aware, a Super License is a mandatory requirement for participation in F1 and a minimum of 40 points are needed for a driver to earn one.

In the five-round championship, after Round Three, both Mumbai Falcons and Daruvala sat in the second spot in the overall team and driver classifications, respectively. However, things did not play in their favour as in the following round, P5 was the best race result the team could fetch, once in Race One by Daruvala and the other in Race Three by Kush Maini.

The final round did not go too well for the team either as Daruvala went into it with a grid penalty from the previous round. As a result, he could not do better than seventh place in Race One. However, he did manage to secure two more podium finishes in the final two races of the championship, taking his tally of podiums throughout the championship up to eight. 

As for his teammate Maini, he was able to better his fifth-place result from Round Four in the opening race of the final round as he secured his maiden F3 Asian podium. Unfortunately, he was unable to carry forward this momentum and finished the subsequent two races in eighth place.

Despite the challenges though, Mumbai Falcons have still managed to etch their name in the history books forever.

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