RLR MSport has signed their first driver for the European Le Mans Series 2020.
The British team has made a deal with 16 year-old Dane, Malthe Jakobsen.
He has quite a bit of experience in single seaters, despite his young age. With two seasons in the Danish Formula 4 Championship, and some races in the Asian Formula 4 series during winter/spring 2019, he has already clocked up a lot of miles in a racing car, following his karting career.
He got his first outing in the old LMP3 car towards the end of 2019, to try the car, and to check if it’s something that would fit him in his career in the coming years. According to the team, it was a very successful test, so they have made a deal with him for 2020.
RLR MSport has quite a bit of history with Danish racing drivers. Morten Dons, Christian Stubbe Olsen and Martin Vedel Mortensen has all been in the driving seat for the team. Dons is still part of the team, but currently part of running the races. He most recently joined the team in Australia for the Asian Le Mans Series race there.
Jakobsen doesn’t have a ranking on the FIA Categorisation List, so it’s a bit unclear if he will be Bronze or a Silver. His Danish Formula 4 Championship could result in him being bumped up to Silver ranked driver. But Gustas Grinbergas, who did ELMS in 2019 and barely had turned 16 when the season started, got his first season as a Bronze rated driver, before getting upgraded to Silver in 2020.
Malthe Jakobsen is the only confirmed drier in the car yet. That might be due to his unknown status regarding the ranking – because you need a minimum of one Bronze driver per car in LMP3.
The European Le Mans Series 2020 starts on the first weekend of April – but the team will have to test their brand new Ligier JS P320 before that, which will compete with all the other upgraded or brand new cars.