Malthe Jakobsen’s rise to the FIA World Endurance Championship has been built on results, consistency and a clear instinct for endurance racing.
At just 22, the Dane is already racing for Peugeot in Hypercar, but his path to the WEC has been shaped long before that by a steady climb through the sports car ranks rather than the traditional single-seater ladder. That route has brought him titles in the European Le Mans Series and Asian Le Mans Series, along with a class victory at the Rolex 24 at Daytona, all of which helped establish him as one of endurance racing’s most promising young drivers.
“I’m only 22, and two or three years ago I was still dreaming about being able to compete in this series,” Jakobsen said. “Now I can compete at the top, and getting these kinds of experiences is something magical almost.”
His early career was rooted in karting and junior formulae before the move into prototype racing. He raced in the Danish Formula 4 Championship in 2018 and won the title in 2019, before switching his focus to endurance machinery and beginning the long but productive climb through LMP3, LMP2 and finally Hypercar.
That transition has been a successful one. Jakobsen won the 2022 European Le Mans Series LMP3 title with Cool Racing, added Asian Le Mans Series success in LMP2, and later claimed a Rolex 24 at Daytona class win, results that made him a natural candidate for Peugeot’s factory programme.
Peugeot’s own profile of him highlights just how early the team identified his potential. He first sat in a kart at the age of three, attended Le Mans as a spectator with his father as a child, and was invited to take part in the FIA WEC Rookie Test in Bahrain in 2022 after his ELMS title success. By 2024, he had been officially signed as a full-time Peugeot driver for the 2025 season, underlining the speed of his development.
Spa offered another reminder of why he is so highly rated. Racing at the sharp end of the WEC, Jakobsen was part of Peugeot’s breakthrough pole position effort at the circuit, a result that confirmed his growing status in the series and his ability to perform in pressure moments.
For Jakobsen, the appeal of endurance racing is not just the cars, but the progression. He has moved step by step through the discipline, learning the demands of race craft, traffic management, team work and consistency in machinery that rewards precision above all else. That foundation now places him in one of the most demanding categories in world motorsport, and he already looks at home there.
His story is still being written, but the trajectory is clear: from karting child to Formula 4 champion, from prototype winner to Rolex 24 victor, and now to factory Hypercar driver in the FIA WE
