Malthe Jakobsen has been named the official junior driver for Peugeot TotalEnergies.
The Dane already had the first contact with the team during fall of 2022, and did the Rookietest in Bahrain for the team, where he did such an impressive job, despite it being the very first time that he was onboard such advanced material as a Hypercar.
The parties have kept in touch ever since, and that has turned into an official contract with the team.
Jakobsen did several seasons of Formula 4 in both his native Denmark plus internationally, before he had his very first LMP3 test with RLR MSport late in 2019. The team pretty much had the contract ready even before he stepped out of the car. He raced for the British team in 2020 and 2021, before he signed with COOL Racing for 2022, where it was LMP3 racing on the board in the European Le Mans Series and Michelin Le Mans Cup, mixed up with LMP2 testing. He won the 2022 ELMS LMP3 Championship together with Maurice Smith and Michael Benham, and took 6 out of 6 Pole Positions in the season.
There were tasks in the US added to that programme, where he participated in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in the LMP3 category.
He did many thousands of testing kilometers onboard LMP3 cars, and was part of helping Lilou Wadoux transitioning into LMP2 in the FIA WEC in 2022, where he coached the young French driver in both LMP3 and LMP2 material.
Photo: JJ Media
He finally made the step in LMP2 in 2023 with COOL Racing, starting out in the Asian Le Mans Series, and won one of the races. There is a full season European Le Mans Series program ongoing, with the 24 Hours of Le Mans being the very tip of the iceberg this year.
Peugeot Sport has been really happy for Danish drivers in their current 9X8 programme. Mikkel Jensen and Kevin Magnussen were chosen as two of the six race drivers very early on. Magnussen however got the offer to return to Formula 1, so he jumped on that wagon instead, while Jensen has stayed with the team.
The replacement for Magnussen was James Rossiter, who had been part of the testing and simulator programme for the team. After just two races, he quit the team, and moved into a role as team principal in Formula E. That brought Nico Müller into the team, who previously was heading towards the Audi Sport programme, until they pulled the plug.
Malthe Jakobsen has tasks to do in the simulator, as well as attending their test days. And the future will show, if that will turn into a race seat for the 19-year-old Dane.
The next task will be the 24 Hours of Le Mans for COOL Racing on 10-11 June 2023, where he will share an ORECA 07 Gibson #37 with his Asian LMS and ELMS teammates Alexandre Coigny and Nicolas Lapierre.
