Danish driver Theodor Jensen has switched to Palou Motorsport ahead of his rookie Eurocup-3 campaign. So far, he says he has benefitted from the team’s “driver-oriented” approach as he eyes a long-term move to North America.
By Juan Arroyo
How often do you get driver coaching from a two-time IndyCar champion?
At Álex Palou’s eponymous racing team, it happens quite frequently, Theodor Jensen has found.
Jensen has switched to Palou Motorsport, the outfit created by IndyCar’s Palou and his father Ramón in late 2022, ahead of the 2024 Eurocup-3 season, his first in the series.
The Danish driver plans to switch to the IndyCar ladder eventually, for which he says Palou’s team could provide crucial connections down the road.
“I was looking more for a different way in Eurocup-3, and we went with Palou because we saw the most opportunities [with] them,” Jensen said.
After spending nearly a year and a half with Saintéloc in Spanish F4, Jensen finds himself in a much different environment – moving from a base in France to one in Spain, with a different team, in a different series. The move was for the better, he believes.
“Palou is a bit more driver-oriented,” Jensen said about his new team. “Since it’s Álex and his dad working together with this team, it’s a bit more something they like to do. They like to involve the drivers. I feel like it’s a lot more [oriented] towards me, and I feel more comfortable in the team. For me, it’s just a better environment.”
At a private test at Valencia’s Circuit Ricardo Tormo, the IndyCar champion served as a reference driver for Jensen and his teammates. The Danish driver said seeing first-hand how Palou works benefitted him greatly.
“Straight away, he was really fast, of course,” Jensen said.
“It was really good to see how he drives, how he works with the mechanic and the engineer after, to see how he involves the car and stuff like that. It’s a good way to show me and my teammates how to work with things in the best way possible, like driving and improving the car with the engineer.
“I would say it’s really good to have a guy like Alex on the team helping. He’s so professional and he knows what to do. He’s done it for a lot of years and he knows exactly how to improve the car. It’s my third year now in motorsport, so I have a lot to learn, like in the way you improve your driving, looking at the data and video.
“I also have [that] with my coach, Benjamin Bailly. But also just seeing it from a champion like Álex, it’s really nice to see.”
Bailly runs a driver coaching scheme and is a former racing driver himself who competed in a variety of junior championships in the late 2000s and early 2010s. He has been working with Jensen since January 2023.
Jensen is planning to compete in Spain-based Eurocup-3 this year and the next, after which he plans to switch to the IndyCar ladder. The move across the pond would presumably place him in the USF Pro 2000 Championship, a logical next step after Eurocup-3.
Several other drivers including Francesco Pizzi, Lirim Zendeli, and Joel Granfors have made similar moves from European series.
“I would call it kind of prepping for the US, because it’s really competitive,” Jensen said. “I learn a lot here and [get] a lot of driving time, so kind of prepping these two years for the US, still going for results, but kind of prepping.”
Jensen’s entry to Formula 4 was unusual, if not bold. He did not take part in karting championships, instead electing to jump straight into single-seaters in his home country. In his sole season in the Danish F4 Championship in 2022, he finished seventh with one win and two podiums to his name.
That year, Jensen also joined Saintéloc Racing for the final three rounds of Spanish F4. He followed that up with a full campaign in 2023, in which he was 30th in the drivers’ standings. He achieved a season-best finish of 12th at the final round in Barcelona.
Jensen recognised that his lack of experience in karting put him on the back foot all season, particularly when it comes to learning racecraft, wet-weather racing and tyre warming.
“I think you get so much race craft in karting. [In] a different way, because you bump a little more in karting than Formula cars, but I just missed all the experience in the wet weather and like tyre warming and stuff like that,” he said.
“It’s just something I need to catch up [in] and it’s going very well doing that.”
“It’s hard to see with these points, [the grid] being like 35 cars. It’s hard to see with the top 10 only. I didn’t score any points and that’s not the greatest, but I also just came from my first year in anything in motorsport since I did no karting.”
2023 Spanish F4 race | Jensen’s finishing position |
Spa R1 | 28 |
Spa R2 | 14 |
Spa R3 | 19 |
Aragón R1 | 18 |
Aragón R2 | 26 (retired) |
Aragón R3 | 22 |
Navarra R1 | DNS |
Navarra R2 | 15 |
Navarra R3 | 15 |
Jerez R1 | 15 |
Jerez R2 | 31 |
Jerez R3 | 20 |
Estoril R1 | 22 |
Estoril R2 | 13 |
Estoril R3 | 21 |
Valencia R1 | 16 |
Valencia R2 | 22 |
Valencia R3 | 29 |
Barcelona R1 | 14 |
Barcelona R2 | 12 |
Barcelona R3 | 24 (retired) |
“You can’t see that with the points because it’s the top 10 [finishers] only. But if it was the top 20 [in the] points, I would definitely have been better at the end than in the start,” Jensen added.
The Danish driver feels more prepared – ‘faster’, he said – with the off-season behind him. When not testing, he focused on improving his physical and mental performance.
Jensen’s trainer Bailly has worked with him on the physical side over the winter, while the 17-year-old has a coach in Denmark to help him work on his mental capacity. He has also spent time at 321Perform, a French performance centre used by a number of junior series drivers as well as F1’s Esteban Ocon.
This year, Jensen’s aim is to finish above his Palou teammates, rookies Garrett Berry and Luciano Morano, in the standings. Jensen was faster than Berry and Morano in all sessions of Eurocup-3 preseason testing in March. Though he expects to beat both, he is wary of becoming complacent. “[From] what I’ve been seeing, I look the fastest,” Jensen said.
The Dane had a tough outing in Eurocup-3’s non-championship winter round in March, retiring from the first race after colliding with Noah Lisle and finishing 10th in the second race behind Berry. He will take to the track again this coming weekend at Spa-Francorchamps for the first round of the championship.
Header photo credit: Niels Broekema / Dutch Photo Agency
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