Malthe Jakobsen is adamant that he has to take some responsibility for the collision that forced the #94 Peugeot 9X8 out of Saturday’s World Endurance Championship race at Spa.
The 22-year-old had qualified the car he shared with Loic Duval and Theo Pourchaire on pole position, with the trio remaining in the hunt for a podium in the first part of the race.
However, disaster struck the #94 Peugeot in the fourth hour when Matteo Cressoni lost control of the #79 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG GT3 at Les Combes and spun directly into the path of Jakobsen.
Matters were not helped by the fact that the Dane was still on cold tyres after pitting the previous lap, and an Aston Martin Vantage GT3 was partially blocking his line of sight.
The contact dealt serious damage to the Peugeot, and although Jakobsen was able to bring the hobbled car back to the pits, the French manufacturer was forced to retire the #94 entry.
While admitting that the circumstances left him with little time to take evasive action, Jakobsen stressed that he “should have been able to avoid the Mercedes”.
“I’m very disappointed with the outcome of the accident at Turn 5,” he told Motorsport.com. «It’s very, very hard to judge in the moment when everything happens so quickly.
“You’re on the outlap from the pits with four new cold tyres and it’s just very, very intense. So in hindsight, yes, I should have been able to avoid it somehow, but that’s racing sometimes, unfortunately.
“It also shows how you can go from hero to zero within 24 hours from yesterday afternoon to today. But I will learn from it.”
Jakobsen stressed that he did not want to shift the blame on others, despite admitting he was being overly critical of himself.
“Of course, I have to take some responsibility,» he added. «I was the one driving the car. You cannot just blame everybody else. But I know I’m also being a bit hard on myself.
“But in the end, there’s no space for things like this in this championship. It’s the world championship, it’s the top of the top best teams, the best drivers, the best cars. So, you have to be on top of your game and when you make mistakes, it’s not great.”
Missed opportunity
#94 Peugeot Totalenergies Peugeot 9X8: Loic Duval, Malthe Jakobsen, Theo Pourchaire
Photo by: Jakob Ebrey / LAT Images via Getty Images
Duval took the start in the #94 Peugeot and dropped to third in the first stint, behind the faster #12 Cadillac V-Series.R and the #15 BMW M Hybrid V8.
A five-second time penalty for a pitstop infringement further compromised the crew, but a strong result was still on the cards until the collision with the #79 Mercedes.
Asked what result was achievable on Saturday, Jakobsen said: “Winning is difficult. That’s pushing the limits a little bit. But I think the podium, if everything turned out in our direction and you saw the fights and the battles, which was amazing to watch on TV, when I unfortunately couldn’t be in the car….
“Who knows, maybe we were in the right spot at the right time and something could have turned out in our favour.
“It’s true in the second stint we were suffering a bit more compared to the first stint, but then I had two new sets of tyres to go in the last two hours and 20 minutes or something. So I think we were in a pretty good window.”
The #93 Peugeot shared by Stoffel Vandoorne, Paul di Resta and Nick Cassidy came home seventh, 12 seconds down on the race-winning #20 BMW M Hybrid of Rene Rast, Sheldon van der Linde and Robin Frijns.
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