Peugeot youngster Malthe Jakobsen after Spa WEC crash: 'You cannot blame everyone else'

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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.