Rodin Motorsport enjoyed their best-ever outing in Spanish F4 to open the 2024 season. One year on from their 2023 debut, the Surrey-based team is only just getting started in their effort to conquer Spain.

By Juan Arroyo

Under their current and previous banners, Rodin have won in just about every category they’ve competed in – from F2 to GB3 to Indy Lights – and taken 35 teams’ and drivers’ titles combined.

As Thomas Strauven took the chequered flag in Spanish F4’s second race at Jarama, Rodin became race winners in yet another series.

There’s something to admire in how they’ve extended their success streak when no year of theirs has started quite like this one.

The team was renamed in January to reflect the firing of previous owner Trevor Carlin, who founded the team as Carlin Motorsport in 1996. Carlin reportedly fell out with new majority stakeholder and Rodin Cars CEO David Dicker, leading to his departure in November 2023 and the team’s subsequent name change.

Yet, despite the off-season chaos, the year has gone ahead almost exactly as planned. After five F2 rounds, Rodin is only 19 points behind the leading Campos in the teams’ standings, with returning driver Zane Maloney also in the midst of a title fight. The only hiccup has been their shelved plans to join Eurocup-3 – which, in turn, prove that Rodin have not come to Spain just to pass the time.

The team signed an all-rookie line-up of Thomas Strauven, Peter Bouzinelos and Preston Lambert for the Spanish F4 season. In preparation, Rodin went to the Spain-based Formula Winter Series in February and March – without Bouzinelos, who spent this period with MP Motorsport – but looked surprisingly off the pace. Rodin only scored points in Aragón, where Strauven took his first F4 win, and finished behind MP, US Racing, Campos and Drivex in the standings.

But their fortunes turned, and Strauven’s overall times in pre-season testing were enough to put him inside the top 10 at all three events and in the top five at the two tests preceding the season opener. The only other driver to achieve the first feat was MP rookie Mattia Colnaghi.

Then, during the race weekend at Jarama, Strauven took third, a lights-to-flag victory and 10th in the three races. Bouzinelos, from a surprising fifth in the first qualifying session, finished fourth and fifth before retiring in race three from a collision. It was Rodin’s single largest points haul in the series, far exceeding their 2023 weekend best of 29.

Strauven naturally seemed elated with his start to the season when speaking to Feeder Series after the weekend.

“I’m feeling great,” he said. “We had the pace on old tyres from the beginning [of race two]. On new tyres [in qualifying], we struggled a little bit more, but I think on old tyres our pace was very good. I just made it a little bit more difficult because of the big lock-up in the beginning of the race. But it was still a good race and a good weekend for me and the team.”

“There’s still improvements that can be done, but I think now I’m adapted to single-seaters because in the beginning of testing it was quite hard to adapt, but now the pace is definitely there in every track, so we can work from here and make big steps.”

The Belgian also acknowledged the jump in form from his team. Repeating his defeat of the established frontrunners will not be easy – both for him as a rookie and Rodin as a team – but that doesn’t mean he can’t do it again.

“It’s quite hard to fight against MP and Campos because they have two teams,” he explained. “But I think Rodin has a very good car underneath, so they’re definitely not bad.

“They also have a lot of experience in British F4, so it was only [the team’s] first year in Spain. This year is their second year, so I think they also learned a little bit from last year.”

With a new car and different tracks to adapt to – some in much warmer climates than the ones at home in Britain – that Rodin squad went through a learning period in 2023. As Spain neared its hottest period of the year, the team had visits to Aragón and Navarra to handle.

But as Feeder Series learned from Paul Wallace, the team manager in Spanish F4, their personnel is largely the same as last year’s bar the driver line-up, which gives them a crucial experience boost.

“It took us two or three race weekends last year to get on top of [the hotter temperatures], but by the second half of the season we felt we were strong enough to compete in the top six on a consistent basis,” Wallace wrote to Feeder Series.

In the penultimate round, Ninovic achieved the team’s first podium finish with a third place in Valencia. Rodin had essentially consolidated fifth place in the standings at this point – not exactly a brilliant debut when measured against Saintéloc and Théophile Naël’s championship effort in their first full season, but a decent base upon which to build nonetheless.

All three drivers left at the end of the season, however, leaving Wallace and the rest of the Spanish F4 personnel with the challenge of keeping up that momentum. With Strauven taking the team’s only Formula Winter Series points in Aragón, things weren’t looking great to kick off the year.

“In Formula Winter Series, it was very hard for us because my teammates were switching the whole time,” Strauven said. “I first had Bart Harrison as a teammate, then I had Ella Lloyd as well, and then … I had Preston, who is now also in the championship.”

“In the races we found that we could improve the setup, but I think from Aragón we found the pace. And then we started to get some quite okay results, and the car was in a very good setup for putting it there.”

Wallace gave similar comments. “Despite a few factors going against us in some of the rounds of the Formula Winter Series, we were also quite strong in that series with Thomas; we won the second race at Motorland so we knew that we had a good package and could really take that momentum into testing and the Spanish F4 championship.”

Bouzinelos and Lambert were admittedly some way behind Strauven in those sessions, but the former found enough pace between testing and Jarama to manage two top-five finishes on his series debut.

“Peter also did a very good job, I think, finishing fourth and fifth, which is also very good for the team standings,” Strauven said. “In testing, he was still adapting to the car a little bit, and because he was with MP before and now [he’s with Rodin], he was adapting to the car because it’s still a little bit different. Now, the team [has] a pretty good line-up.” 

With their newfound success, the team will be riding high going into Algarve this weekend. To repeat the feat, though, they’ll have to beat MP and Campos – who, by contrast, had a disappointing weekend at Jarama – all over again.

Wallace, who was there last season, said he understood the scale of the challenge. “It’s a tough championship, there’s no doubt about that. It attracts a big field and the drivers are strong across the board, but having Thomas win in Motorland, plus the strong testing pace, really gave everyone a lot of confidence that we could show well in the main Spanish F4 series,” he wrote.

Rodin have enough resources to start taking the fight to MP and Campos consistently. How long before that happens is unknown, but the Portugal round will be revealing. This is a team that could, and perhaps should, join its F2 and F3 rivals in making up a big three in Spanish F4 in the long run.

Feeder Series asked Wallace if he sees the team going for any of the titles this year. “There are some strong teams and drivers to beat but I hope we are challenging for the titles this year!” he replied.

This season may be a little early to do so considering the line-up’s relative inexperience, but all signs point to Rodin’s fighting for wins consistently sooner or later.

Perhaps that time has already begun.

Editor’s note, 6 June 2024, 17:35 CEST: A quote in this article was altered after a transcription error was discovered. This adjustment led to the relocation of portions of two other paragraphs.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency