Tag: Jake Dennis

Season 9 Formula E champion Jake Dennis is coming into this campaign rejuvenated after losing his crown last season, according to Andretti team principal Roger Griffiths, and his driver agrees he’s coming in with a better mindset.

While Dennis was a race winner and further three-time podium finisher in 2023-24, his form fell away towards the second half of the year as he finished seventh in the standings. Ahead of Season 11, the Briton admits there were things he could have done better, but that he didn’t feel like competing as the reigning champion put him under any particular pressure.

“I personally felt like my motivation last year was high,” Dennis told RACER. “I was not particularly lazy, but I also didn’t quite look into driving techniques to my absolute best. The motivation was there to succeed, we had an incredible first half of the year, and it also died off towards the end.

“Last year, I literally felt no pressure in terms of having the No. 1 on my car. And actually, (I was) maybe probably more relaxed, just purely because I felt like I’d achieved — I’d shown everyone what I can do. And I still have that to my name now, I’m still a world champion, so from my side, it doesn’t change all that much. It is just a sticker, right? At the end of the day, I’m driving the race car as fast as I possibly can.

“From my side, I just want to win races, podiums, and that’s generally enough to wrap up the championship. It’s good to be back in the car. It’s been a long time since London, where we didn’t do too well, and it’s good to show I can still drive.”

At the four-day pre-season test in Jarama this week, Griffiths says that he’s already seen Dennis in “a much better place.”

“I don’t think Jake personally had his best year last year, and I think he’d be the first to admit to that,” Griffiths said. “He seems to have come here with a much more focused mindset. Last year, when he had No. 1 on the car, he had the target on his back immediately. I think now that he’s back to No. 27 the pressure is off a little bit. From that perspective, you can just stay focused on what it is he does well, which is driving fast.

“I think there were a lot of distractions last year, and I think he’s in a much better place — we’re already seeing that. The focus is there, the detail is there, the preciseness is there.”

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Porsche customer Andretti ultimately didn’t feature in the championship equation towards the end of last season — which ended up being a straight fight between the factory Porsche team and Jaguar TCS Racing — but rather than a slump in the team’s own performance, Griffiths feels that it was more indicative of the Formula E field as a whole improving in what was the second season of the GEN3 formula.

“I don’t think we did anything fundamentally wrong last year,” he said. “I think what we saw was an increased level of competitiveness, particularly from the manufacturer teams. Maybe that was some of the challenges for the manufacturers in developing a car, working with a customer, whereas we had the luxury of just focusing on performance. They were having to do all of the stuff, plus trying to focus on performance.

“At the end of the day, if you look at where the championship standings ended up, we were the best of the non-manufacturer teams. We were the only non-manufacturer team to get a race win.

“There are things that we could have done better, I should say. I think there was a few procedural things that we really tightened up on and you’ve seen that coming already. Formula E now is so competitive, it is not that magic silver bullet to fix everything. It’s just the attention to detail, and it only takes a little bit.”

Jake Dennis went into the first race of Formula E’s Diriyah E-Prix doubleheader thinking he had a shot at the win, but his 13-second demolition job took him by surprise.

While less than a second covered the rest of the top five, Dennis sailed off into the distance, keeping enough in hand to add the fastest lap late on, too. He knew he was fast, but the mammoth gap wasn’t expected.

“Nobody expects to win by 13 seconds, and if you do you’re very arrogant,” he told RACER. “But yeah, we had an incredible race today and didn’t expect it at all. The car was performing absolutely amazing. It’s good to hear that there was overtaking from behind — it looked like it was a pretty exciting race on the big screens but yeah, awesome race. Hopefully we can replicate it tomorrow.”

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The Andretti Global driver had a watching brief as DS Penske’s Jean-Eric Vergne sparred for the race win with Jaguar TCS’s Mitch Evans, but a perfectly timed Attack Zone strategy allowed him to get the leap on both, and unlock the true pace of his Porsche-powered car.

“There was obviously a lot going on; the team had their numbers and I had the feeling I had in the car and I think they didn’t realize how much pace I had compared to what I could do,” he said. “Ultimately, being able to show that pace allowed me to make the jump on JEV and Mitch.”

Dennis’ first Attack Zone run brought him right into the victory fight, but instead of using that and his pace to fight for position, and saving his second pass though for later in the race, he got it out of the way two laps later. It was a decision that consolidated his position at the front of the field, and ultimately helped him stretch out a big lead.

“You just want to get it out of the way because the Attack mode here isn’t that powerful,” he said of the quick one-two punch with the Attack Zone. “It was important to get it done and then cover ourselves if there was a safety car or something.”

Dennis’ relatively trouble-free run fit the narrative in the paddock pre-race that Diriyah could be a somewhat dull affair, but behind him there was plenty going on as Evans and Vergne battled over second, with Evans eventually slipping to fifth. Saturday’s second race though will be a lap shorter, with the same starting energy amount, meaning that there will be less energy saving and less opportunities to overtake. Conversely, track evolution could help drivers push harder, in itself opening up more opportunities.

“I’m glad that there’s overtaking — I didn’t expect there to be any and it’s good that there is,” Dennis said. “Each lap we do the track cleans up more and more, which allows us to take more risks on overtakes. The race will be more difficult to overtake tomorrow because it is shorter and more energy, and hopefully we’re at the front and we can do our own thing.”

Jake Dennis claimed victory in the first race of the Diriyah E-Prix doubleheader, timing his Attack Mode power boost use to perfection in crushing the rest of the ABB Formula E World Championship field by 13.289s.

The opening stage of the 37-lap race was a story of front row starters Jean-Eric Vergne and Mitch Evans as they battled over the race lead, but it was that fight that allowed Andretti Global’s Dennis to start to build an advantage.

After Dennis’ first run through the Attack Mode lane on lap 6, he only narrowly dropped behind DS Penske man Vergne, but when he took the slower line again two laps later, he maintained track position and never looked back from that point.

Vergne and Evans, meanwhile, continued to squabble over second. The Jaguar TCS driver got by up the inside of Turn 18 on lap 12, and then set about chasing down Dennis for the race lead, using his power boost built from his run through the attack zone to close up. A repeat move at Turn 18 didn’t give him the race lead, though, with him running deep and bringing Vergne back into the fight.

Vergne then beat Evans at his own game at Turn 18, sneaking up the inside of Evans, who dropped off the clean line. The pair made contact on the exit, but Vergne held strong and consolidated second.

While Vergne’s energy level was lower than the cars around him, Evans’ attention was instead taken by teammate Nick Cassidy behind him. The pair engaged in team strategy swapping positions multiple times as they looked to secure a double podium for Jaguar. Yet Vergne maintained second, while NEOM McLaren’s Sam Bird — part of a gaggle of mid-pack cars who left it late to use their Attack Mode boosts — closed up late in the race in a bid to spoil the party.

Nevertheless, a podium of Dennis, Vergne, and Evans looked to be nailed down — until the final lap where Evans made a last-ditch bid to snatch second. The move, once again at Turn 18, proved costly, however, as he ran deep and slipped to fifth behind Cassidy and Bird.

Up front, such was Dennis’ advantage thanks to his trouble-free run after taking the lead and the battles going on behind him, he had enough energy in his pocket to make two attempts at the fastest lap, which he nailed on lap 34 and again on lap 36.

Behind the top five, Norman Nato was sixth in the other Andretti entry, with Maximillian Guenther seventh for Maserati. Mexico City winner Pascal Wehrlein finished eight after a poor start dropped him from sixth to ninth at the start of the race. Ninth went to Sergio Sette Camara, who had a look up the inside of Evans at Turn 1 on the opening lap, but his ERT’s efficiency deficit proved to be a handicap, robbing him of a realistic chance at remaining in the top five.

Robin Frijns completed the top 10, beating McLaren’s Jake Hughes by a mere 0.053s.

There was only one retirement, with Nissan’s Sacha Fenestraz sustaining suspension damage after contact on lap 1. While he pitted for repairs, his day ultimately came to an end after he completed just 12 laps.

RESULTS