Ahead of his title defence getting underway at the Mexico City E-Prix in a matter of days, Jake Dennis sent a harrowing warning to the Formula E paddock, as he exclusively told Motorsport Week that he’s confident he “can try and win this title again”.
Dennis heads into Season 10 as one of the title favourites, having broken several records in 2023 on his way to becoming World Champion. Last year was a phenomenal one for the Andretti Formula E driver, who broke the records for most points scored in a season (229), most podiums in a campaign (11), most fastest laps (five) and average highest points scorer in the history of the all-electric series.
He more than deserved the Season 9 crown, as well as his opportunity to drive for Red Bull during Free Practice 1 at the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. His 2023 Formula E performance was almost Max Verstappen-esq, making it somewhat fitting that it was the Dutchman’s car he drove at the Yas Marina Circuit.
The reigning World Champion has had since the end of July to reflect on the most recent Formula E season and recognise everything that he achieved, although he admits that he’s not had that long to really “just appreciate what’s gone on”. Nevertheless, he celebrated his title with friends and family and is now “ready and eager” to kickstart his title defence.
“I’ve had plenty of time to reflect on it,” Dennis exclusively told Motorsport Week. “I don’t know if I’ve done it by myself. I don’t really know. I feel like I’ve been surrounded by so many friends and family ever since London in July. Ended up doing a lot over the past four or five months.
“So, I don’t think I’ve really had too much time to sit down and just appreciate what’s gone on. But nevertheless, I feel like I have sort of appreciated the situation of what we achieved with all my friends. But, yeah, I’m now just sort of ready and eager to get going to start the season. It literally starts tomorrow for me. Really, the simulator preparation for Mexico is tomorrow. So that’s when I really see the season start to kick-off.”
As seen in several world championships, both in motorsport and away from it, becoming World Champion can impact people very differently. Some, like Dennis, find themselves “more at ease” and with less pressure on their shoulders, whilst others can struggle to deal with the World Champion title.
The returning Nyck de Vries is a prime example, as his attempt at defending his Season 7 crown was shocking in Season 8. The same can sort of be said for Stoffel Vandoorne last year, although in his defence he had to defend his crown in a new generation of Formula E machinery.
Dennis is actually planning on treating Season 10 completely differently to Season 9, as the 28-year-old wants to become “more calm and collected” even in times of disappointment.
“Honestly, I feel a bit more at ease going into the championship, more than ever,” revealed Dennis. “Partly because last year I went into Mexico thinking that I didn’t have a good car at all. Whereas this year I know I’ve got a decent enough car and know we’ve already won it, I can just sort of go in there a little bit more calm and collected and just try and sort of take the whole championship as one.
“Like last year, was very much just like round by round and just trying to, especially when we’re in that slump of scoring no points, it was quite difficult.
“Whereas I think this year, knowing that I’ve always got probably a good car underneath me, I can just sort of, if Mexico doesn’t go well because we’re not fast enough or a mistake or whatever, then I’ll try and just be a lot more calm and collected and appreciate that the season is long and that we’ve still got all the chances in the world to get it right. If this first sort of month of January racing doesn’t go well.”
Even if the Nuneaton-born driver did feel any pressure ahead of Formula E celebrating a decade since its birth, the weight of having to perform impeccably at every E-Prix has been significantly reduced from his shoulders.
Dennis has a new teammate for 2024, with ex-Nissan driver Norman Nato having been signed to replace André Lotterer. Lotterer was responsible for just 9.1 per cent of Andretti’s total points last season, highlighting just how much the team depended on Dennis to claim third in the Teams’ Championship.
On paper, Nato should be able to score points consistently, which should in itself increase Andretti’s chances of winning the Constructors’ Championship. Winning the title for the team is something Dennis is “quite eager” to do, and he recognises that it’ll be easier with Nato alongside him.
“Definitely. I think now I’ve won the championship, obviously I want to win it again and all that, but I do really want to try and help the team try and win the Constructors’,” stressed Dennis. “It’s something which I’ve always been quite eager to try and win, but nevertheless, obviously the drivers’ championship is the most important one for themselves.
“But I think bringing Norman in will definitely take a bit of pressure off me. You know, when I had that bad sort of five or six races, André was obviously also suffering quite a lot in terms of performance. So, you know, when I wasn’t scoring the podiums or scoring points, the whole morale of the team was down.
“And I think this year, if I have a bad race and Norman is performing, then it should just be a better environment inside the team. We can rely on him a little bit more. A, to keep the morale of the team high. And B, to obviously keep the constructors’ championship points going.”
Given that Andretti stand a better chance of winning the Teams’ Championship this season than they did last year, does that mean Dennis will prioritise the American outfit’s title hopes over his own in the Drivers’ Championship?
No. Well, at least not initially. Dennis will enter 2024 focusing on defending his crown but notes that if himself and Nato are towards the front, then the team will be likewise in the championship.
“Well, they naturally come hand in hand,” he said. “I’m obviously going into this to try and win the Drivers’. And then, obviously, if Norman is performing well, then we can definitely work together and try and win the Teams’. But the first three or four rounds will be very much just focusing on myself and trying to do the best job I can for my result.
“And then if Norman’s having good results, race wins, podiums or whatever, then naturally he’ll be fighting for the drivers’, and then we’ll probably both be at the front and have a very good constructors’ points lead or fighting for the lead. So, yeah, I think drivers generally focus on the Drivers’, but then the team sort of take care of themselves.”
In becoming World Champion last season, Dennis has been given the exclusive option of running the #1 plate on his Porsche 99X Electric Gen3 this year, something he has opted to do despite being “sceptical” about it.
He recognises that he might never get the opportunity to run the #1 plate again, a smart view to take considering how unpredictable Formula E is.
“Yeah, it’s a proud moment for sure,” said Dennis. “You don’t get to run number one very often, where you actually choose to run it and earn it. So, I was sceptical of running it, but you just don’t come by these moments very often.
“And I just thought anything could happen, could get injured next year and obviously not even have a chance to defend it. So, I think now I’ve won it, it just felt right to give it a go and, hopefully, we can keep it on for years to come. But, yeah, I think it’s just a nice moment for the team to have the number one on the car as well.”
Focusing on the car, Andretti have benefitted from Porsche, their supplier, making progress with their powertrain. With the exception of the official pre-season test last October in Valencia, Dennis hasn’t actually completed much testing during the off-season.
The vast majority of the testing has been conducted by the factory team and their drivers, Pascal Wehrlein and António Félix da Costa. Dennis believes the German manufacturer have done a “pretty good job” since London in improving the car, although he suspects that Mexico City will show that all the powertrain suppliers have made progress.
“Yeah, the testing and development is always moving forward,” said Dennis. “To be honest, I haven’t done a great amount of testing since July, purely because we didn’t have too many days left as a manufacturer of Porsche and the days which we did have, obviously, Pascal and Antonio did them, so it’s very much just sort of left in their hands.
“But nevertheless, I think they’ve done a pretty good job from the work they did from London to Valencia. Seemed like a good step forward in terms of software and hoping that, again, they’ve made another step in the right direction at least. But nevertheless, I don’t really know how competitive we’ll be until we get to Mexico.
“I’m sure everyone’s moved forward, no one’s standing still in this championship, so I expect the lap times to be quite a bit quicker than what we did last year if conditions are pretty similar. So, yeah, it’s always a moving target.”
Following the progress Porsche have made with their software, Dennis is expecting the factory side’s biggest woe in Season 9 to not be an issue come the season-opener, which could make Wehrlein and Da Costa a greater threat.
Wehrlein and Da Costa had consistent trouble putting a quick lap together in qualifying, often resulting in poor starting positions. Dennis revealed that both drivers ended up using his setup to try and find some performance, even though the factory outfit was using the “latest version” of Porsche’s software, whilst Andretti wasn’t.
“I mean, to be honest, the software is completely different to last year,” explained Dennis. “So, we were running different software, they were running more of the latest version, we weren’t. And obviously, they had full transparency in terms of setup. So, towards the end of the year, they were running basically my car setup.
“So, they were sort of running as close as they possibly could towards us. And there was obviously still quite a big difference between us in qualifying. But I think going into this year it is like a bit of a clean slate. Those guys have really reinvented the software for the better. So, I would imagine we’ll all start at the same spot again.
“And then when it comes to the first sort of three rounds where engineers sort of and drivers prefer different preferences, then you probably see a bit more differences. Hopefully, we can obviously still have the edge, but it could swing the other way.
“The software could perform or lean more towards them in terms of their driving style and stuff like that. So, we’ll have to wait and see. But I have every bit of confidence in Andretti to try and find the best solution for my driving style.”
Because the Gen3 cars have come on so much over the past 12 months, the expectation throughout the paddock is that Mexico City is going to be a very different race compared to last season. The Mexican capital hosted the first race of the Gen3 era last year, at a time when so little was really known about the machinery or how to exploit the most from it.
Dennis blitzed the field by eight seconds on his way to victory last year; however, he’s not expecting to win by a country mile this time around.
“Yeah, I think, as we saw at the end of the championship [Season 9], or even probably from like race six, no one ever breaks away, no one allows you to break away, because last year, if you weren’t quite quick enough, you would just let the leader pull away, and then you just try and survive,” noted the Briton.
“Whereas now it seems to be more efficient just to sit in someone’s tow. And even if you feel like he’s too quick for you, it’s actually more efficient to spend that bit more energy because you end up getting it back in his tow. So, I think there’s going to be a lot of overtaking compared to last year.
“It wasn’t a huge amount in Mexico last season, so I expect it to be a very different race. The conditions, I suspect, will be quite similar, quite cold in the morning, so it’ll be quite difficult to sort of get the tyre to work.
“Qualifying will be really in between the two strategies of whether you just do one long run or two short runs. So, I think strategy wise, it’d be quite difficult to get right, but then the racing should be lots of action, I would imagine.”
Formula E is renowned for being the most unpredictable of motorsports, as proven by the fact that ERT were the only powertrain supplier not to feature on the podium last season. In terms of the favourites to win the Teams’ Championship, it’s expected to be between the Porsche and Jaguar-powered teams.
However, Dennis is wary of Maserati MSG Racing, who became very strong in the second half of 2023. If the Stellantis-powered outfit can perform consistently, then Dennis believes they could be “quite difficult to beat”.
“You know, I think the likes of Nissan and McLaren, they’ve always been great over one-lap,” Dennis pointed out. “They’re probably one of the strongest cars over one-lap last year, especially at the start, and then you’ve still got the Maserati’s and the DS’ when that thing’s in the correct window, like it was in Jakarta for Günther.
“It’s incredibly fast and might even be the fastest thing on the track. So, if they can try and find their sweet spot a little bit more often, then I would imagine it’s going to be quite difficult to beat. I think, you know, if I had to choose a powertrain, it would obviously be a Porsche or a Jaguar. But nevertheless, I do think the likes of Maserati and the Nissan powertrain will be much, much closer and will probably score more frequent podiums.”
Even though Dennis can see several teams being strong in Season 10, a lot of the build-up has been based around Jaguar TCS Racing and their potentially unbeatable driver line-up of Mitch Evans and Nick Cassidy.
Evans and Cassidy are viewed by most as the title favourites, with Jaguar’s package having looked very strong during testing, where Evans set the time to beat. As they are both fiery drivers, though, Dennis ponders whether Evans and Cassidy partnering one another is a “recipe for disaster”.
“I mean, even the Envision line-up is incredibly strong,” insisted Dennis, when asked if the factory Jaguar side are the team to beat. “You’ve got Robin Frijns and Sébastian Buemi, so those guys are incredibly talented. But, you know, the title was down to the three of us last year with Mitch and Nick, and those guys were performing at an incredibly high-level.
“Now they’re team-mates, so you’d be stupid to say not to. But you look just around the corner, and you’ve got the likes of Pascal, Da Costa, me and Norman, and then Buemi and Frijns. So, there’s so many good drivers and such a good powertrain [Jaguar], I really have no idea how it’s going to pan out.
“And two drivers who are probably quite fiery, like the likes of Nick and Mitch, and you know it could be a recipe for disaster. You never know, hopefully,” Dennis joked. “But we’ll have to wait and see, really.”
A feature which could have a huge impact on the title fight is the introduction of fast-charging pitstops, which were trialled by most drivers during testing. An introduction date is yet to be confirmed by Formula E, although Diriyah could be an option.
Dennis is “all for it” being introduced given that it’ll continue to help “pushing the technology forward”; however, he does have one big concern. The British driver is wary that the fast-charging concept still has a “lot of bugs in the system”, whilst he admits that he’s yet to even trial the technology.
“Yeah, I mean, I’m all for it as long as everything works. Right now, there’s still a lot of bugs in the systems and I haven’t done one single fast-charge yet, so my first one will be in Saudi if, obviously, it happens,” he said.
“I think the design or the idea is good in terms of creating a pit-stop, pushing the technology forward. It’s important for the manufacturers to have that as long as everything falls into the right place. The only thing that might be a bit annoying is if you’re on the wrong side of the Safety Car.
“You could be having a great race and looking like an easy top-three finish. And then you’ve got the likes of ERT and the Mahindras, which obviously might do the weaker strategy in terms of just outright performance, but if there’s a safety car, then they’ve obviously just looked in and probably gained like 30 seconds and then will win the race.
“So, it’s just another snowball into it. So, hopefully, we can try and cancel that sort of element of unpredictability out of it. And then I think it’ll be a really good step.”
Regardless of when the technology is introduced, Formula E Season 10 looks set to be even closer than last year, especially as every team is likely to have made progress during the off-season.
As for his chances of becoming just the second driver to defend his crown in Formula E history – Jean-Éric Vergne became the first after winning the Season 4 and Season 5 titles – Dennis believes he “absolutely” has what it takes to keep hold of the decorated #1 plate.
“Absolutely, yeah, I think we’ve made a good enough step forward to try and defend this title,” said Dennis. “I’m confident that we can do it. I’m just intrigued to see how big of a step everyone else has made. But, yeah, I think coming outside of Mexico, we’ll have a lot better understanding. But, yeah, nevertheless, simple answer is, yeah, I think we can try and win this title again.
