On his first weekend in single-seater competition, Alfons Miettinen demonstrated his prowess by staying calm and collected amid chaos to finish just outside the top 20 in the Spanish F4 opening round at Valencia.

Stepping up from competitive karting, Alfons Miettinen’s journey in Formula 4 competition started with a last-minute call on Monday of the Valencia race weekend from GRS, earning him a chance to drive in the ultra-competitive Spanish F4 championship with one of the longest-serving teams in the series.

The Finn’s rising star wasn’t completely new to the machinery though, as he partook in the Koiranen shootout at Valencia towards the end of 2025, giving him his first taste of Formula 4 machinery. Compared to the rest of the field though, who had competed in the Winter Series and had hundreds of laps under their belts across testing, Alfons headed into the weekend with a big disadvantage, but it didn’t stop him from making the most out of his last-minute opportunity.

After accumulating valuable experience across testing and the first two practice sessions, Alfons qualified 29th in Saturday morning’s first qualifying session, while remaining close to more experienced drivers.

With the help of Marko Koiranen, founder of the eponymous team, Alfons headed into race one determined to show his driving prowess. In race one later that day, the Finn rising star kept his cool against experienced opposition, even locking himself in a close three-way fight towards the latter stages of the race to claim a 26th-place finish on debut.

The second race of the weekend seemed to be a similar story for Alfons, as from 28th on the grid, he ran as high as 24th, but his hopes of a good result were ended by a technical issue, that forced him to retire.

A difficult second qualifying session on Sunday morning saw Alfons qualify 33rd for race three of the weekend, but that set the stage for an incredible comeback from the Finnish youngster. Amid chaos, Alfons kept his car clean and steadily climbed up the order to cross the line in 25th, but was later promoted to 21st after post-race penalties were applied.

In two months’ time, Alfons will be back on track for the second round of the Spanish F4 Championship, which will be held at Portimao on 6–7 June.