Virtuosi Racing’s Hungarian driver, Martin Molnár had an intense weekend at Donington Park, competing in four races instead of the usual three. He managed to secure three rookie podium finishes in the British Formula 4 Championship.
Coming off a strong performance with three overall podiums in the previous rounds at Zandvoort and Knockhill—where he made history by earning Hungary’s first-ever podium in an FIA-sanctioned Formula 4 championship—Martin Molnár continued his season at the legendary Donington Park. Returning to England, it was clear that this race would be a significant challenge for the now 16-year-old, as unlike many of his competitors, including his two teammates, Martin had never raced on Donington’s Grand Prix circuit before.
After Thursday’s practice sessions it became apparent that the car setup required major adjustments for Saturday, and Martin knew he had to get more in sync with the track. However, despite these changes, the desired performance wasn’t achieved. During a red flag period in a rainy qualifying session, the team made further tweaks, which left Martin more satisfied with the car’s handling. However, due to a series of yellow and red flags interrupting the session, he could only secure the 15th fastest time and was ranked 13th on the second-best lap times.
As the race weekend included a makeup race for the one canceled due to rain at the Donington season opener, Martin faced an additional race on Saturday. Starting from P11, he finished P10 and secured third in the rookie classification.
On Sunday, in the reverse grid race, Martin started from P15 and avoided the chaos at the start, climbing to P10. Although he briefly fell back to P14, he regained positions with clean laps and smart overtakes, finishing P12 and earning another rookie podium.
In the weekend’s fourth race, Martin once again started P15, battled hard, and finished P10, but after the stewards penalised one of his rivals he moved up to P9. He secured third place among the rookies once more which brought his total to three podiums for the weekend. Martin’s record so far this season: 3 absolute podium finishes and 17 rookie podiums, i.e. he already won a total of 20 trophies in his first F4 season.
“It’s clear that he still needs to gain experience in positioning himself when three or four cars are all vying for an overtaking opportunity. He’s already handling one-on-one duels excellently, but he still needs to learn when to attack or hold back to avoid losing momentum, which can lead to losing positions. It was encouraging to see him find extra pace by Sunday,” commented Tamás Pál Kiss, MOTAM director and Martin’s coach and mentor.
The British F4 grid will return to action at Silverstone on September 21-22. Martin currently stands second in the rookie championship with 310.5 points, trailing Yuanpu Cui, who leads with 332 points.