Daruvala fine after crash at Silverstone

Making his Eurocup debut in the fourth round of the season, Daruvala straightaway got into a good rhythm as he topped the first practice session on Friday with a time of 1m58.831s which was 0.411s clear of Kevin Jorg's (Josef Kaufmann Racing) second-best time.

The Indian followed it up with a seventh place finish in the second practice, topped by Koiranen GP's Jake Hughes; Daruvala was 0.444s off Hughes' time.

"My first ever Eurocup weekend and topping the first practice was a big boost of confidence for me, the car felt great and I was in a good rhythm and the race pace was good on the old tyres," Daruvala told Motorsport.com.

Crash in the first race

The Fortec Motorsport driver finished third in his group in the first qualifying but was to start sixth as Jake Atiken (Koiranen GP) took pole in the other group.

The race never went according to the plan as Daruvala was involved in a first lap incident which ended his race. His car rolled over at Becketts corner when he was punted by his teammate Ben Barnicoat.

"Unluckily, I had a crash on the first lap, I rolled over. I crashed with Ben [Barnicoat], my teammate, he made contact with me at Beckectts which sent me over. It was fine as it was classified as a racing incident," Daruvala said.

Atiken won from AVF's Harrison Scott and Hughes ended third. The race also had a huge shunt where Ferdinand Habsburg went airborne after hitting Barnicoat at the start/finish line.

For race two, Daruvala had qualified eighth in his group and was to start 16th, after Atiken took another pole but the Indian couldn't compete in the race because of the accident in the first race.

Jorg took a comfortable win ahead of Atiken and Hughes in the second race.

Difficult final race

The team did a brilliant job to fix the car, putting in new bits and a new engine for qualifying on Sunday morning. Daruvala qualified seventh in the group and started 13th after Tech 1 Racing's Anthoine Hubert took pole.

It was a difficult afternoon for the Force India protege as he dropped to 16th in the opening lap of the final race. He fought his way up to 14th, by lap four, only to drop back a place in the next five laps.

Ultimately, he finished 16th after Charlie Eastwood (AVF) overtook him on the final lap of the race. Hubert won the race from Jorg and ART's Ukyo Sasahara.

"I felt quite good this morning after I got up, I felt confident for the day but it was hard day for me after the crash yesterday," Daruvala said after the race.

"I struggled quite a bit in the qualifying and in the race itself I was down on pace. I'll be in the factory and I'll sit with the team and look into it in the next few days.

"The chassis felt all right in qualifying but in the race, my pace was not good. Hopefully, the team find something because from yesterday and today, it was a big difference, I lost about a second after the crash," he added.

There is no time to rest for Daruvala as he be back in action this weekend in his second Eurocup race at Nurburgring.

Interview by Valentin Khorounzhiy