A difficult start couldn’t stop the driver from Thy and his team in this weekend’s double-header of the Asian Le Mans Series.
With a victory in Saturday’s race and a fifth place on Sunday, the driver from Thy and the Portuguese team have taken the lead in the Asian championship. However, this weekend’s great results have not come without a certain amount of work from both the drivers and the team:
– My flight from Portugal, where I was working with Peugeot TotalEnergies, was cancelled, so I barely made it to the track on Saturday night. This meant that I had only done one lap in qualifying before I got in the car during the race with 75 minutes to go,” says Malthe Jakobsen, who was able to use his experience together with Michael Jensen and Valerio Rinicella to bring the car to victory during the four hours.
Sunday’s race offered new challenges; this time in the form of a slightly damaged car when Malthe’s Italian teammate collided with a competitor and damaged the car’s dive plane. The Dane could clearly feel it when he was the last man in the car:
– “Without the dive plane there is not the right amount of downforce on the front wheels, so I lacked grip and at the same time the tyres wore out much faster than the competition. It wasn’t realistic to compete for the win, but we got the car to the finish line and even fifth place, and we’re very happy with that under the circumstances,” says Malthe Jakobsen, who can enjoy two days off in the desert state before the final two rounds of the Asian Le Mans Series next weekend:
– “It’s been a great weekend, and although we definitely wanted more after Saturday’s victory, I believe we will complete the mission for another championship next weekend. The APR team delivers a flawless car every time and both Michael and Valerio do a really strong job behind the wheel. It’s a huge pleasure to drive with these people,” says Malthe Jakobsen.
The final weekend of the Asian Le Mans Series will be held at Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi. The races will be run on Saturday and Sunday from 12.00 noon CET.