These are interesting times to be a Formula 1 driver. And that's not just down to the fact that a string of new rules, coupled with a fresh approach to aerodynamic?car design, have made the sport even more friendly to overtaking.?
But it's largely down to the fact that never before in the recent F1 history has the grid sported a combination of new faces (that bring excitement) as well as the old guards whose appeal transcends generations.
On the one hand, there's the troika of timeless greats in Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso, and Sebastian Vettel that brings massively impressive numbers like 925 combined race starts and 13 world championships.
While on the other hand, nearly each Formula 1 team has an important driver who's in his mid-twenties, which clearly?suggests that the sport is determined as much by experience?as it stands for youthful exuberance.
Today, F1 belongs as much to an Alonso or Vettel as it does to a Yuki, Charles, Lance, Zhou, Gasly and Ocon.?As a matter of fact, 8 of the 20 present F1 drivers are under 26 years of age, which makes the average age of nearly half of the grid at 23.6 years.
Here comes another 23-year-old who could soon break into the top echelons of Motor sport racing.
He neither belongs to the Ferrari land, nor he hails from the land of Great Britons - whether Mansell, Hill or Hamilton.?
Jehan Daruvala, a noted participant in the ongoing FIA Formula 2 series, vastly considered by many to be the penultimate step before reaching Formula 1, has always had his sights on F1.?
And where it stands at the moment, it appears, India's Jehan Daruvala may soon realise his ultimate racing dream.
In a sport where Fernando Alonso once famously said, "Most just dream of racing in a single Grand Prix or at the most two and where, one dreams with eyes wide open of breaking into a top F1 marquee outfit."?
It is a dream come true of sorts for Daruvala having been asked by McLaren of all teams for a test drive.
In the checkered seven decade history of Formula 1, few teams have gone on to earn as much respect as statistical amazement as McLaren, the very outfit that has asked Jehan Daruvala to get behind the wheels of its MCL 35.
It's a team that sported the great rip roaring rivalry of the nineties: Senna versus Prost. It's a team with which studs like James Hunt raced in their prime.
And it's a team that has produced names like Kimi Raikkonen and not to forget, one of Jehan Daruvala's?own racing idols: Fernando Alonso of Oviedo, Spain.
And in the next few hours, McLaren will prepare to gauge the racing talent of a young driver that has taken not just India, the country of his birth, but much of Formula 2 by a storm.
But fast that he is on the tarmac, Jehan Daruvala, who first shot to fame in 2011 by winning the "One in a billion" contest by then Force India racing team, is also?highly practical off it.?
How's that?
In stating in no uncertain terms that being invited by McLaren for a test drive does in no way guarantee him a space in F1 in the course of the future, there was a sense of poise and simplicity about Daruvala, who was born in 1998.
Making his F2 debut in 2020, Daruvala's?exploits in the last couple of years have been about pulsating speed and not holding himself back in Formula 2, widely considered the litmus test to break into the top draw of single-seater motor-racing: F1!
With 3 wins, as many fastest laps and 12 podiums on the whole from just 60 race entries, Jehan Daruvala has also given number crunchers some interesting data to play with.
The Prema racing driver, a side that has produced several current F1 drivers such as Ferrari's Charles Leclerc and Haas' Mick Schumacher, has, on an average produced a podium in every fourth race he's been a part of in Formula 2.
While his best finish came in the last season of F2, i.e., 2021 given his P7, it's his skill behind the wheel that has caught the eye of the McLaren contingent, the iconic marquee led by Zak Brown in Formula 1.
Though interestingly, Daruvala took to karting much later in life at the age of thirteen (in 2011), unlike most European names who begin much earlier, he didn't take long to impress.
After winning the 2012 Asia-Pacific Championship and standing third in the 2014-bound Karting World Championship, Jehan Daruvala progressed onto other forms of racing: Eurocup Formula Renault, Toyota Racing Series and the famous GP3, where he raced with MP Motorsport.
All of that said, what matters most at this moment in Jehan Daruvala's?career is what's to happen at Silverstone, the spiritual sport of Formula 1 as also the venue of the first-ever F1 Grand Prix (Great Britain, 1950).
Excited and eager to participate in a run that, for all intents and purposes, will be more about Jehan's own skill than that of the MCL 35's, the understated Indian?couldn't have said it any better when he exclaimed, "It¡¯ll be tempting to go flat out. But the main goal is to learn. (But) at the end of the day, I am a racing driver so I want to drive as fast as I can¡¡±
Armed with oodles of self-confidence and a certain grace with which he approaches his racing journey, there's a feeling that Jehan, who hails from the country or Karthikeyan and Chandhok, can go a lot further than his compatriots and not make a big deal about it.
That's even as getting to test a McLaren of all cars is pretty much a big deal in itself.
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