Three drivers, all from MP Motorsport, are in contention for the drivers’ title as Spanish F4 concludes its 2024 season with three races at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Feeder Series tells you what you need to know ahead of the finale.

By Seb Tirado

Like its senior series Eurocup-3, whose title fight Feeder Series previewed yesterday, Spanish F4 has its own drivers’ championship battle to resolve this weekend as the series prepares to crown its ninth champion.

With 75 points up for grabs this weekend and 18 races completed, Keanu Al Azhari currently leads the standings with 239 points, 13 points ahead of Mattia Colnaghi in second with 226 points. In third is Maciej Gładysz with 180 points, 46 points behind the Italian rookie and 59 points behind second-year Al Azhari.

Last year, Christian Ho achieved a triple grand slam by taking all three pole positions, race wins and fastest laps and leading every lap of each race. However, it was Théophile Naël – who came into the weekend with a 65-point lead over Ho – who won the 2023 title by 23 points after finishing third in race one, which was enough to put Ho out of mathematical contention.

MP Motorsport also narrowly took the 2023 teams’ title by two points over Campos’ second team, Campos Racing Drivers Development, who led the standings coming into Barcelona.

This year, MP Motorsport will take the teams’ title again, though which entry will do so is not yet decided. KCL by MP Motorsport – represented by Colnaghi, Gładysz and Lucas Fluxá – are currently on 393 points, 75 points ahead of the main team, represented by Al Azhari, Griffin Peebles and René Lammers. Each team can score a maximum of 126 points per weekend.

Keanu Al Azhari (P1, 239 points)

Al Azhari is in his second full year of F4, having made his full-time season debut in the 2023 F4 UAE season. Competing for Yas Heat Racing Academy, he finished seventh in the standings with 63 points, having scored two podiums at the series’ second visit to Dubai and Yas Marina.

He then competed in Spanish F4 with MP Motorsport and finished ninth in the standings with one podium, which was a third place in the first race of the season at Spa. He scored his first career pole in qualifying for race two, from which he retired with just over seven minutes left.

In 2024, Al Azhari took two podiums at the first round at Jarama before taking his first Spanish F4 victory at the first race at Portimão from pole. He has since gone on to take three wins from pole and five further podiums, including a grand slam in race two at Jerez last time out.

His frontrunning campaign in Spanish F4 is not his first title charge this year, nor is it a surprise considering his wintertime form. In his second F4 UAE season, he finished third overall, just eight points behind champion Freddie Slater, with two wins and five further podiums. Then in March, he finished first and second in his first two Formula Winter Series races, both of which he started from pole, and came seventh in the points despite missing half the season.

Back in August, the 16-year-old said to Feeder Series that he “didn’t feel a threat for the title ” as he entered the final three rounds of the season. At the time,  he had a 34-point lead in the standings, but he now has a lead of only 13 points.

The results of his last two rounds – which included a fourth, a fifth and two non-scores – have been  weaker than those he took earlier in the season. Entering the finale, Al Azhari will need to do all he can to stop the hard-charging Colnaghi before the championship slips away from him.

Mattia Colnaghi (P2, 226 points)

In his debut year in F4, Colnaghi has shown promising talent on numerous occasions, and he can already be considered one of the most impressive drivers this Spanish F4 season.

Colnaghi scored points on debut with MP Motorsport in FWS by finishing seventh in race one at Jerez. He again finished seventh in race three and finished eighth in the second race at Valencia.

After his part-time FWS campaign, Colnaghi entered a full season of Spanish F4 with MP, his prize for winning the 2023 Richard Mille Young Talent Academy shoot-out. The Italian driver had a less than ideal first round at Jarama, finishing eighth in race one before retiring in race two after mounting Ernesto Rivera’s car and landing atop teammate Lucas Fluxá’s. Colnaghi then started race three from pole position, the first of his car racing career, but finished 17th after falling down the order when he lost his front wing on the third safety car restart.

Colnaghi bounced back from his misfortune in subsequent rounds. After taking second in the first race in Portimão, Colnaghi scored points in every race bar the first race at Valencia. In the last four rounds, the 16-year-old has scored four victories, including three grand slams, and taken five further podiums.

Colnaghi’s recent run of form has him on a streak of five consecutive podium finishes, including a win and his third grand slam. If he can keep up this momentum, he could beat Al Azhari to the title and become Spanish F4’s first rookie champion since new Red Bull junior Nikola Tsolov in 2022.

Maciej Gładysz (P3, 180 points)

Standing 59 points behind the championship lead, Polish rookie Gładysz has little chance of challenging for the title, but that’s not to say he doesn’t have a chance to improve his championship position.

Like his Italian teammate, Gładysz started his debut year in F4 by competing in the 2024 FWS season with MP Motorsport. In the first round, he scored two podiums and a fifth-place finish. With another podium at Valencia and four other points finishes in the last three rounds, Gładysz finished third in the standings with 92 points and as the top rookie.

Gładysz had a more successful start to his Spanish F4 season than Colnaghi did, finishing fifth, second and 12th in the three races at Jarama. After not scoring in two races in Portimão, his worst round of the year, Gładysz returned to the points and kicked his season back into gear.

He went on to take three victories in a row from pole, starting with race three at Paul Ricard and ending with race two at Aragón, where he also took the fastest lap. The 16-year-old has also taken four further podiums since his first one at Jarama, with his last two coming at Jerez last time out.

It will be a tall order for Gładysz to overturn the 46-point gap between himself and Colnaghi, never mind his 59-point deficit to Al Azhari, but doing so would be an impressive display of the potential he has shown multiple times this year.

Header photo credit: Dutch Photo Agency