Jakobsen: Reserve Experience Beneficial to Peugeot Integration

Malthe Jakobsen says his time as a reserve driver with Peugeot helped him to hit the ground running as he stepped up to a FIA World Endurance Championship race seat with the brand, explaining it helped him to become familiar in a factory environment.

The Danish youngster was promoted by Peugeot over the winter as a replacement for Nico Mueller after the Swiss driver departed to become a factory Porsche driver, sharing the No. 93 9X8 with Loic Duval and Stoffel Vandoorne.

Jakobsen’s step up to the race team comes after a lengthy preparation process with the brand, initially driving the then-wingless 9X8 at the rookie test in Bahrain in 2022.

He was then first named the brand’s junior driver before serving as the official reserve driver in 2024, a role that saw him a significant amount of testing mileage.

The upcoming 24 Hours of Le Mans will be Jakobsen’s fourth race start for Peugeot and his first top-class appearance at the French endurance classic after back-to-back LMP2 starts in 2023 and 2024.

Jakobsen credited his involvement with the team in previous years as good preparation for his promotion to the race team, also pointing to last year’s Imola and Spa rounds where he was on-site in his reserve capacity.

“Obviously, I don’t know what it would have been [like] if I would have been thrown straight into it last year,” Jakobsen said.

“But for sure, knowing all the stuff that I’ve been able to learn by being a small part of the team in the test sessions and following the races [helps].

“I was here at Spa and Imola last year already, just purely as a reserve driver watching over the shoulder of the other drivers.

“I’m definitely confident that this has helped me to make sure I was ready to do the job that I had to do this year.”

Jakobsen’s promotion to a Peugeot race seat comes after several years climbing the prototype ladder, racing for the likes of CLX Motorsport, Sean Creech Motorsport, RLR MSport and Algarve Pro Racing.

Comparing his previous programs to the works Peugeot effort, Jakobsen noted that the scale of personnel involved stood out as the most significant difference.

“In terms of inside view and changes from a team perspective, I would definitely say it’s the people that are involved in the project,” he said.

“Where in the past you used to have a strategy meeting, it was maybe the team manager, then one race engineer and then the three drivers. Now we are a full table of 15 people every time. So there’s just much more hands on the project, which is great.

“But also sometimes, let’s say for me at the beginning, it made it more difficult because there was much more people to speak to.

“So each of them individually were much more specific in one topic, where in the past you would always go to a race engineer and he would know more or less everything about what was going on. So you just need to know who to speak to.

“I wouldn’t say it took me a while, but it’s different. And it’s good because then everybody is much more specific and every single small little detail is picked up by everybody and everybody does their job to perfection.

“So it’s great to see. Since last year even more new people have come to the team. So of course there are still a few new people that I need to get to know.

“But it’s true that most of them, Olivier [Jansonnie, technical director], all the marketing team behind me, all those kind of people we already knew from the past. So this definitely makes it a lot easier and makes it more comfortable.”

Aged 21, Jakobsen is significantly younger than co-drivers Duval and Vandoorne, who are 42 and 33 years old respectively and have multiple world championships between them.

Despite that, the Dane spoke highly of the team dynamic with his two more experienced co-drivers.

“Of course, 90 percent of the time I am mainly listening,” he said. “In terms of experience and even age as well, there is a relatively big difference between Loic and I for example, but even Stoffel as well.

“They have a lot more experience in the backpack, but also it’s great to see that it feels like proper teammates.

“It’s also including the No. 93 car, it’s the two cars in general, it doesn’t feel like it’s a fight in between the two cars or in between drivers at all.

“It’s all like we are one big team and we are working together because in the end, who cares if it’s the No. 93 or the No. 94 that wins.

“Of course you want your own car to succeed but we’re here as a team and as long as one of them manages to do well then that’s what we’re working for.”