Spanish F4 will race at the Circuito de Madrid Jarama in Spain’s capital city for the first time since 2020 this weekend.

By Juan Arroyo

It feels as though 2020 was simultaneously ages ago and yesterday.

Current F3 drivers Mari Boya, Joshua Dufek and Oliver Goethe were only just beginning their single-seater careers. Mick Schumacher was fighting for his eventual F2 crown. Max Verstappen still hadn’t won a world championship.

It was a unique year in motorsport, with schedules compressed into six months and crowds prohibited from going to races as the pandemic began to hit record numbers. Drivers donned masks on podiums, grandstands stood empty, and journalists exchanged paddock interviews for Zoom calls.

It was also the last time Jarama appeared on the Spanish F4 calendar. The pandemic saw a subsequent switch in promoters for the series and a modified calendar. The circuit was to host the sixth of seven rounds of the season in early November.

Located just north of Madrid, Jarama is an important piece of the country’s motorsport history. When it opened in 1967, it became Spain’s first permanent racetrack. The circuit then went on to host 11 grands prix between 1967 and 1981, nine of which counted towards the Formula One World Championship, before the layout was deemed too narrow for F1 cars.

Fast forward 40 years, and a facility that once saw the likes of Graham Hill, Emerson Fittipaldi and Mario Andretti take the chequered flag on its main straight sees little action outside of small, national events. So forgotten has the 3.850-kilometre circuit been that, prior to 2020, the last time Spain’s national F4 series had visited the venue was in 2016, during its inaugural season.

However, this year, the cancellation of the opening round in Navarra because of an incomplete support line-up left organisers scrambling to find a new venue. Once more, Jarama saved the day.

The weekend

Kas Haverkort had won eight of the 15 Spanish F4 races held by that point. With a 49-point lead in the standings over MP Motorsport teammate Mari Boya, Haverkort entered the weekend with a shot at being crowned champion.

Haverkort claimed pole position for race one, and went on to lead every single lap of the race in damp conditions, while Boya could only muster third place. Joshua Dufek, also driving for MP Motorsport at the time, split the two championship contenders. 

Notably, Léna Bühler – the 2023 F1 Academy runner-up who is set to compete in the Formula Regional European Championship this year – had qualified on the front row, the best qualifying result for a woman in series history. She retired on the final lap of the race from 12th position after skidding off into the gravel.

At the start of race two, polesitter Haverkort had a lucky break when Oliver Goethe slid offline at the first corner and got hit from the rear by Boya. The incident left the Spanish driver second to last on the first lap, nearly 12 seconds back from Haverkort. A safety car came out shortly after when Mehrbod Shameli and Carles Martinez retired after sliding off into the gravel at Turn 1.

Haverkort managed to maintain his lead at the restart with nine minutes plus one lap remaining and went on to win the race. Boya was not so lucky; he dropped to the rear on the restart lap and came home 11th.

The Dutch driver now led Boya by 80 points in the standings. He would have to keep the margin larger than 72 points by the end of race three if he was to become champion that day.

He pulled away immediately from pole position in race three, but his advantage was nullified on lap three when Quique Bordas and Alex García retired in separate incidents, causing a safety car period.

On the restart on lap seven, Haverkort fended off the attacks of Boya into Turn 1, Boya, squeezed out wide, was then passed by Thomas ten Brinke and Goethe and dropped to fourth. Offs for Bühler and Lorenzo Fluxá brought out the safety car for the second time.

The race restarted with six minutes to go, and as the chequered flag fell, Haverkort had a one-second gap over Ten Brinke in second, taking both his 11th victory of the season and the championship title. It wound up being Haverkort’s only title in single-seaters.

Where are the protagonists now?

Haverkort stepped up to FRECA with MP Motorsport in 2021. He spent three seasons in the series, the latter two with Van Amersfoort Racing, and achieved a best finish of fourth in the standings last year. With series regulations allowing a maximum of three full seasons and without the budget to move further up the single-seater ladder, Haverkort switched to Porsche Supercup with GP Elite ahead of 2024.

Boya went to Van Amersfoort for his rookie season in 2021 and finished 14th in the championship. The Spanish driver went to ART in 2022 before switching to MP Motorsport mid-season. In 2023, Boya stepped up to F3 with MP and balanced those commitments with a Eurocup-3 campaign in which he finished second despite missing one round. For 2024, he remained in F3 with Campos Racing; he is ninth in the championship after two rounds.

Dufek stayed in F4 for another year before becoming Haverkort’s teammate at VAR in 2022. He spent half of 2023 in FRECA before switching to Euroformula Open in addition to joining Campos for the final round of the F3 season. Dufek is currently 28th in the F3 standings with PHM Racing.

Goethe finished fifth in the 2020 Spanish F4 championship. The Danish driver continued with MP in FRECA but switched to Euroformula Open the following year. He went on to win the title comfortably and also starred in a two-round F3 cameo with Campos ahead of a full season with Trident in 2023. He is now back at the Campos F3 squad as Boya’s teammate.

Thomas ten Brinke – a world champion in junior karting in 2019 – was third in the standings by the end of the year despite missing the first two rounds. But midway through the 2021 FRECA season, Ten Brinke quit racing entirely. He cited mental struggles and a lack of joy in racing as the reason for his retirement.

Lorenzo Fluxá, sixth in the 2020 Spanish F4 standings, has switched to sportscars after three seasons in FRECA. In the 19-year-old’s case, he moved to the European Le Mans Series with Cool Racing, recently taking his first victory in the series at the 4 Hours of Barcelona. He also entered Euroformula Open’s Portimão season opener a fortnight ago and took a win and two further podiums.

Header photo credit: F4 Spain