In this paper, we study the conditions under which a module is a strict Mittag–Leffler module over the class [Formula: see text] of Gorenstein injective modules. To this aim, we introduce the notion of [Formula: see text]-projective modules and prove that over noetherian rings, if a module can be expressed as the direct limit of finitely presented [Formula: see text]-projective modules, then it is a strict Mittag–Leffler module over [Formula: see text]. As applications, we prove that if [Formula: see text] is a two-sided noetherian ring, then [Formula: see text] is a covering class closed under pure submodules if and only if every injective module is strict Mittag–Leffler over [Formula: see text].