Gustav Malja will make the switch from single-seaters to sportscars for 2018, joining the Project 1 team to take on the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup and the Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland championships.
The Swede will take on a total of twenty-four races across sixteen race weekends, with ten of the rounds taking place in the short space of eleven weeks.
“I’m really excited for what lies ahead this season,” says Malja. “We’ve spent this winter really looking carefully at all the options for my future, and we’ve done that very thoroughly.
“We felt I needed to reset my career and the Porsche one-make series offer the perfect place for me to do so. I’m thrilled that we got such an extensive and strong programme together.”
With both series using the second generation Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car, Malja is looking forward to settling in to the new challenge, despite the steep learning curve ahead of him.
“It’s going to be an entire new way of driving for me, with a lot more weight and less downforce than I’m used to, and I’ll be up against some very fast Porsche specialists,”
“I do expect to need a few races to settle in, and then to gradually improve my performance as the year goes on. Thankfully I’ve got the knowledge of a highly experienced team to lean on – I really enjoy working with them already and I know they’re on top of their game, so I couldn’t be in a better place.”
Credit: Zak Mauger/FIA Formula 2
Malja will join Larry ten Voorde, Jake Eidson and Michael de Quesada at the front-running Project 1 team.
“We are experienced in educating drivers coming from single-seaters and are looking forward to doing the same with Gustav,” says team principal Marcel Jürgens-Wichmann.
“As we’ve shown with Nick Yelloly in the last two years, our focus is on forming those guys into frontrunners as soon as possible.
“Gustav shows the prerequisites for getting there. After the pre-season tests, we know what to do and where our focus should be.
“Gustav is a professional racing driver, working hard on his performance every day, and we are most happy to welcome him into the team.”
The season will get underway on the weekend of 14-15 April when the Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland starts at Oschersleben. The first Supercup race weekend will be 11-13 May in Barcelona.
