Jakobsen ‘Never Gave Up’ After Spin to First Peugeot WEC Pole

Photo: Julien Delfosse/DPPI

Malthe Jakobsen said he used the moments before the start of Hyperpole to “clean the memories” from his dramatic spin in qualifying to storm to his and Peugeot’s first career FIA World Endurance Championship pole.

Jakobsen bounced back from a spin on his out lap at Raidillon to take the No. 94 Peugeot 9X8 to top qualifying honors for Saturday’s 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, in a landmark day for the French manufacturer.

Reflecting on the incident that almost threw everything away, Jakobsen said: “It was definitely not the ideal start to the qualifying session.

“I think you try to manage some gaps with the cars ahead and I knew the Genesis in practice was usually a bit more cautious under [tire] warmup procedure, so I tried to leave a bit of room and to roll a bit more speed through Raidillon.

“Then the bump caught me out big time at the top. Unfortunately I had a spin there.

“Luckily I didn’t hit anything and I wanted to get the car back straight but I felt immediately there was some vibrations, which is normally not supposed to be there from the tires.

“I believe I had some kind of flat spot, at least on the front tires.

“With the team, we decided to box immediately, put a new set of tires and start from afresh. Luckily we still had enough time to do the full procedure with the two build laps and go for a proper push lap in the qualifying.”

The 22-year-old Dane qualified second with a 2:01.023 lap time, which Jakobsen said put him in solid position to fight for the Hyperpole, where he improved to a 2:00.653 lap in the LMH-based prototype.

“I was kind of lucky I had two good laps in the normal qualifying session and I actually improved on the second one,” he said.

“I took a bit more margin on everything and I think in the moment when you have the spin, your heart stops for a quick moment and then when you’re rolling again, you realize, ‘OK, it’s now time to take a deep breath, get the focus back.

“Of course the break in between the qualifying session and the Hyperpole was very good just to speak a bit on the radio, get the data layover with the sister car because Stoffel [Vandoorne] also made it to Hyperpole.

“Then of course you just need to clean the memories and start from scratch and go out in Hyperpole and just enjoy the moment and drive the car to the limit.”

It marked Peugeot’s first WEC pole in the manufacturer’s 28th attempt in the world championship dating back to its debut in 2022, which came at a crucial time according to Jakobsen.

“I’m very, very happy for everybody in the team,” he said. “Especially this being the last race before Le Mans, it’s a great boost for everybody including all of the mechanics in terms of motivation to keep working hard back at the workshop.

“This really shows that even though it’s been a tough start to the season in Imola and the last couple of years have also been very challenging, I think it shows today that everything is possible and that you should never give up.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John