Jensen Marold took AU4’s Gen1 class by storm last year, securing a decisive championship victory with 12 wins from 12 races. Feeder Series caught up with the 15-year-old ahead of his step up to Gen2 in 2026. 

By Anabelle Bremner

True dominance is rare in junior motorsport, a discipline in which the chassis and regulations are optimised to level the playing field. Still, every now and then, one undefeated victor slips through. 

In AU4’s Gen1 class championship last year, that victor was Jensen Marold. At just 15 years old, the Adelaide native remained unchallenged in all but one session of his debut AU4 campaign to take home the title without resistance – and claim the Motorsport Australia Young Driver of the Year award to boot.

Unsurprisingly, Marold steps up to the Gen2 class with aplomb backed up by proven skill – but he’s not naïve.

“I do have confidence,” he tells Feeder Series. “I’m excited for the year ahead. I do think there’s going to be a lot more competition. We’ve got a lot more coming from interstate by the sound of things, and quite a few people coming from New Zealand who have done some formal competition over there.”

Rather than shying away from the challenge, Marold relishes it, believing that racing new competitors will be ‘a really good test’ and hoping to learn from them as well.

“I’m of course going to try to carry on my dominance as much as I can, but we’ll see when it comes down to testing and the opening races how the season’s going to go,” he says.

This level of skill and acclaim has been a long time coming. Marold began his motorsport journey at the age of five in a dirt kart, before progressing to competitive karting at six, racing against a ‘really competitive’ field.

“I was thrown in the deep end, pretty much,” he recalls. “When I first started karting, I did four races on my P-plates, and my first race off them was the South Australian state championship. I think in one race, I went from last to third in turn one, even with loads of interstaters in the running. I don’t know how I pulled that off, but that was an alright weekend.”

“I just kept progressing,” he says. “Then I did my first Formula Ford race in Western Australia at the end of 2024, and I showed pace pretty much straight away, and then [I] got P3 in my first ever [weekend].”

A Formula Ford podium is no mean feat. The notoriously tricky manual series ‘separates the good from the great’, as Marold puts it. His success there gave him the confidence he needed to launch into his debut AU4 season in the older generation of F4 machinery, open to drivers as young as 14 who are looking for an early start in cars.

“Adam [Gotch] from AGI Sport had proposed the idea,” Marold recalls. “He originally suggested I do the first two rounds to kind of try it out, so we did that. Then I dominated everything there and had a good crack at the championship, so we decided to do two more rounds and I won 12 out of 12 races.”

Having already secured the title in round four, Marold skipped the Sydney finale, ending the season with an 81-point lead over second place. 

Winning the Gen1 championship came with a free test day in the Gen2 car, which Marold undertook at Sydney Motorsport Park, where he’d secured his title victory a few months before. Despite less-than-ideal conditions, changeable track conditions, and a brief stint stuck in a seat mould, Marold’s test was ‘really good’.

“The Gen1 car, the Mygale, was quite a bit stiffer and a lot more physical with the steering and brake pedal. The Gen2 Tatuus is definitely easier to drive,” he notes. “It’s hard to extract those last few tenths, though. It feels like I’m going to have to work a bit more to get a blistering pace this year.”

Marold plans to supplement his AU4 challenge with an appearance in the Radical Cup in winter when the series supports the Perth round of Supercars. It’s an opportunity he describes as “really exciting” – and he’s already shown he can excel at it.

“We’ve done a little bit of testing with Arise Racing in the Radical, and I’ve exceeded all expectations,” he says. “[GB3 driver] Noah Lisle was testing the Radical on the same day as me, and I was faster than him. That was a really big confidence boost for me, and it was great to see what my capabilities really are.

“We were trying a lot of things, playing with setups, trying to find out what I prefer, because when it comes to that race I really need to be on top of my game. I have to be competitive.”

This Radical Cup round is more than just a chance to get behind the wheel. For Marold, it’s something of an audition, a stepping stone on his journey to the series of his dreams: Supercars.

“I’m definitely looking to progress to that side of things,” he says. “It’s more attainable for me, and it’s also where my sponsors and supporters are hoping to see me end up. It’s really the pinnacle of Australian motorsport.

“I think everyone dreams of Formula 1, but now that I’m older, I have more of an idea of what’s really achievable. That European pathway is unrealistic for my family and I, and you see so many people who go over and move up the ranks, sometimes all the way to Formula 2, and the next minute you wonder where they’ve gone.

“At the end of the day, F1 only has 22 seats. The competition level is just so high, and even though I do believe I have what it takes, that whole journey just isn’t realistic for me. Staying in Australia gives me a higher chance of reaching a professional level of motorsport, which is my overall aspiration.”

Marold’s ideal trajectory the next few years reflects this ambition, and he’s got it all planned out. Reaching Supercars isn’t always easy, but the path is well trodden by many heroes of Australian motorsport – including fellow Young Driver of the Year award winners Kai Allen and Broc Feeney, the surprise polesitter of last year’s New Zealand Grand Prix.

“I’d like to get some Super2 testing under my belt, potentially this year or maybe next year,” he says. “The first step is definitely Super2. You have to be 17 to race, so I’ve still got a while to go, but we’re calling it my 2028 plan. If all goes well with sponsors and all that, I believe I’ll do really well there.”

Header photo credit: JCR Multimedia