Racing Engineering are pleased to announce that Gustav Malja will be joining the Racing Engineering team for the 2017 GP2 Series. The 21-year-old Swede will be driving for the Spanish team in his second full season in GP2.
Gustav Malja was born in Malmö and he began racing karts in 2006, winning the Gunnar Nilsson Memorial trophy the following year and in 2009, now in the KF3 category he won the Swedish Championship. Gustav moved to single-seaters in 2011 competing in the ADAC Formel Masters and in 2012 he won three races which saw him take the runner-up position at the end of the year.
For 2013 and 2014 Gustav raced in the Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 and Formula Renault 2.0 NEC Championships, winning at Hockenheim and the Nürburgring in the latter series and for 2014 the young Swede took the step up to the Formula Renault 3.5 Series where his progress was clear with best results of 2nd at the Nürburgring and 3rd in Hungary in this very competitive category.
2016 has been Gustav’s first full season in GP2, after racing in three rounds in 2015, and he quickly adapted to the new series with two podium finishes when taking third in the Monza Saturday race and second at Spa on Sunday to finish 13th in the Drivers’ Championship. In the post-season testing at Abu Dhabi last week Gustav drove for Racing Engineering on all three days quickly acclimatising to the Spanish team and setting some competitive times including being 4th fastest on the morning of the final day.
Alfonso de Orléans-Borbón, President of Racing Engineering: “I am very pleased to announce that Gustav Malja has joined Racing Engineering. Already with ample experience in GP2, he is rea! dy to start achieving wins in this extremely competitive category. Having known him for a couple of years now, he fits into our team philosophy of hard work and teamwork. We are going to have a great season working together.”
Gustav Malja: “I’m excited to join Racing Engineering for the 2017 GP2 season, we began getting to know each other in Abu Dhabi last week, and I immediately felt very much at home. It’s a team with a long and successful history in GP2, and I’m convinced it’s the ideal place for my continued development as a driver. I’m also very pleased to have everything in place at such an early stage – it will ease preparations this winter and give us all some peace of mind.”