Maldonado's first experience in single seaters was in Italian F4 in 2016. He drove alongside Leonard Hoogenboom for the Cram Motorsport team, a lackluster first year in Italian F4 saw Maldonado fail to score any points and record his best result of 12th only 7 races into a 23 race season. He finished the season 36th sandwiched between Liechtensteiner Fabienne Wohlwend and Austrian Thomas Preining. His Dutch teammate fared much better win a singular podium finish at Imola and 2 more points scoring places to gain him a total of 20 points.
Maldonado's first points of his career came at the 1st round of the 2016–17 MRF Challenge Formula 2000 Championship where he finished 9th. Another poor season took Maldonado to 14th in the table with his best 2 finishes of 8th coming at the Buddh International Circuit. Maldonado returned for the following campaign finishing in the points 7 times with his best finish of 5th coming on two occasions. Maldonado originally finished 3rd at the second race after a poor start from pole-sitter Julien Falchero allowed Maldonado to jump into 2nd place, Indonesian driver Presley Martono kept the pressure on Maldonado all race before piping him to the line after a photo finish. Maldonado was later disqualified. The next race another penalty forced Maldonado out of the points after a drive-through penalty for jumping the start, dropped him to 15th.
Maldonado joined the Fortec Motorsport team for the 2017BRDC British F3 Championship, he enjoyed an uneventful season with his best result coming at Silverstone Circuit where he finished 6th. He ended up 20 points ahead of closest rival Guilherme Samaia and 11 points behind Omar Ismail. The 2018 season was where Maldonado took his first career victory at a wet Oulton Park, still with Fortec, Maldonado started in 5th place however after the first corner he was leading the race. Despite a safety car and a red flag due to incidents behind them, the top 3 drove a close yet uneventful race which Maldonado came out on top. Maldonado shared the podium with teammate Tristan Charpentier and Douglas Motorsport driver Jamie Chadwick. Maldonado won one more race that season taking him to 7th in the standings, behind Billy Monger. A third season in the series with Fortec saw him partner American Kris Wright and Brit Johnathan Hoggard. Maldonado took 5 podiums that year as well as a singular win at Silverstone, a dominating race which saw him finish 4 seconds ahead of 2nd place Nicolás Varrone.
