Mikkel Jensen (racing driver)

Jensen began karting in 2010 at the age of 15, having been gifted a kart by his father, and raced in his native Denmark for the next two years. Following a successful first test for the ADAC Formel Masters series, Jensen decided to pursue a career in racing.^[3] He made his debut in the series in 2013, driving with the Lotus-monikered Motopark Academy team. Jensen finished tenth in the championship with podiums at Spa and the Sachsenring.^[4] Jensen remained in the series in 2014, moving to the Neuhauser Racing team. He achieved ten wins at Oschersleben, Zandvoort, Spielberg, the Slovakia Ring, the Nürburgring and Hockenheim on his way to the championship title.^[5]

 

In 2015, the Dane graduated to the FIA Formula 3 European Championship, joining Mücke Motorsport.^[6] With a pair of podiums at Monza being his best result, Jensen ended up tenth in the standings. He remained with Mücke for the 2016 season.^[7] Despite being in his second year, he could only take one podium finish on his way to twelfth overall.

2016 saw Jensen make his sportscar racing debut in the European Le Mans Series, as he joined Formula Racing for the round at Le Castellet.^[8] Piloting a Ferrari 458 Italia GT2, Jensen and teammates Mikkel Mac and Johnny Laursen finished second.^[9]

After exiting Formula 3, Jensen switched to the LMP3 category of the ELMS, driving alongside Alexander Talkanitsa Sr. and Jr. for AT Racing.^[10] The trio ended up sixth in the standings, with the Dane being a deciding factor in a lone victory at the Spa-Francorchamps Circuit and scoring three pole positions and fastest laps respectively across the season.^[11] Additionally, Jensen won the 6 Hours of Rome as part of the AF Corse outfit.^[12]

In 2018, BMW Team MTEK confirmed Jensen as their reserve driver for the 2018–19 World Endurance Championship campaign, a year after BMW signed to their junior programme.^[13] The Dane went on to compete with another BMW-affiliated squad, namely BMW Team Schnitzer, in the ADAC GT Masters with Timo Scheider.^[14] Three podiums earned the pair sixth place overall at year's end.

Ahead of the 2019 season, BMW promoted Jensen from junior driver to works driver, running him in all five races of the Intercontinental GT Challenge.^[15] Parallel to his GT commitments, the Dane drove for Eurointernational in the ELMS's LMP3 category.^[16] Partnering Jens Petersen, Jensen would have a standout year, winning the championship after amassing three victories at Monza, Silverstone, and Spa, where Jensen overtook two drivers on the final lap.^[17][18] The title was decided in controversial fashion, as Jensen and Pedersen would inherit the championship following a penalty for Inter Europol, whose bronze-ranked driver had undercut their mandated driving time.^[19]

Going into 2020, Jensen progressed to the LMP2 category, driving in the ELMS for G-Drive Racing alongside Roman Rusinov and Nyck de Vries.^[20] The team scored three podiums including a win at the season finale, though the Dane put G-Drive out of the title picture when he crashed out of the lead late on at Spa, before a water leak at Monza gave the title to United Autosports.^[21][22] Thanks to the win at Portimão the outfit finished third in the standings.^[23] He also took part in two races of the IMSA SportsCar Championship, winning the Petit Le Mans event in class for Tower Motorsport By Starworks.^[24]

At the start of 2021, it was announced that Jensen would become part of the Peugeot Sport Le Mans Hypercar outfit for the 2022 WEC season.^[1] For his main campaign in 2021, Jensen drove in all seven races of the IMSA SCC together with bronze-ranked Ben Keating at PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports.^[25] The duo went on to control the championship despite a retirement at Daytona, as they won at Sebring, Watkins Glen, and Laguna Seca to win the LMP2 title.^[26][27] In 2022, the Dane would join Keating and Scott Huffaker for the IMSA endurance rounds, whilst also competing in the LMGTE class of the ELMS for Car Guy Racing by Kessel Racing.^[28][29] In the former, the trio scored two wins and took home the Michelin Endurance Cup title, whilst Jensen and teammate Frederik Schandorff narrowly missed out on the title at the final round, having gone on charge to pass Michelle Gatting for the victory at Spa.^[30][31] During the latter half of the year, Jensen completed the final three races of the WEC campaign together with Paul di Resta and Jean-Éric Vergne.

The following year, the trio of Jensen, di Resta and Vergne returned to the World Endurance Championship, driving the Peugeot 9X8.^[32] Though the year proved to be challenging, the trio managed to score the marque's first podium with the new car by finishing third at Monza, leading them to finish eighth in the drivers' standings.^[33][34] In addition to his WEC commitments, Jensen drove in IMSA for TDS Racing, finishing third in LMP2 together with Steven Thomas after winning two races.^[35][36]

^† As Jensen was a guest driver, he was ineligible for championship points.

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position) (Races in italics indicate fastest lap)

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap)

Year	Team	Co-Drivers	Car	Class	Laps	Pos.	Class Pos.
2020	G-Drive Racing	Roman Rusinov   Jean-Éric Vergne	Aurus 01-Gibson	LMP2	367	9th	5th
2021	Kessel Racing	Scott Andrews   Takeshi Kimura	Ferrari 488 GTE Evo	GTE Am	128	DNF	DNF
2022	Kessel Racing	Takeshi Kimura   Frederik Schandorff	Ferrari 488 GTE Evo	GTE Am	336	45th	12th
2023	Peugeot TotalEnergies	Paul di Resta   Jean-Éric Vergne	Peugeot 9X8	Hypercar	330	8th	8th
2024	Peugeot TotalEnergies	Nico Müller   Jean-Éric Vergne	Peugeot 9X8	Hypercar	309	12th	12th
Source:[37]

(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position; results in italics indicate fastest lap)

^† Points only counted towards the Michelin Endurance Cup, and not the overall LMP2 Championship.

• Mikkel Jensen on Facebook
• Mikkel Jensen career summary at DriverDB.com