Written by Jacob Awcock, Edited by Meghana Sree
It's 9:00 am on a Thursday morning. Jake Dennis, driver for Andretti Formula E team, has just been handed a coffee as he sits down with DIVEBOMB’s Jacob Awcock following the break between Mexico City and Jeddah to discuss his championship-winning season and the hopes he has following the start of Season 11.
The evolution of Formula E
Entering its 11th season, Formula E continues to evolve and grow its audience in different countries. With the 2025/26 calendar still unannounced,
Formula E has currently raced at 33 different venues, Dennis racing at 21 of them. Two of those new venues are Jeddah and Miami, with Formula E visiting both over the coming months.
But the Andretti man (who has recently moved to Monaco) would rather take a trip overseas to Australia, which, though logistically difficult, remains a venue that he urges Formula E to consider:
“It’s Australia, obviously a big task to get there but it's always been my favourite location to go, places like Sydney, so hopefully we can stretch over there in the coming years.”
Despite this, the ex-GT driver remains excited for Jeddah and Andretti’s home race in Miami: “I know the circuit [Jeddah] a little bit, it's a pretty cool circuit.
A new circuit is always an exciting one for us and then obviously Miami is going to be the most exciting one of the year. Hopefully we can try and get a good result for the team there.”
With speculation surrounding next season’s calendar ongoing and the prospect of further races gaining traction every day, Dennis appears on board after being asked for his opinions around the potential of a much larger calendar.
“I think for us 20 races, which would probably be 16-17 locations, would be the perfect balance.
Obviously everyone would be working away from home more but I think the championship now is good enough to be at that level and promote the series more to the public eye by racing more and not having these big breaks which we currently have.”
Formula E continues to grow rapidly, and while Dennis hasn't been a part of the series for as long as the likes of Sam Bird and Lucas di Grassi, he still remains delighted at the progress of the series and, with the new GEN4 era edging ever closer, he is thrilled at the prospect of further growth.
“It's come a long way, obviously GEN4 is just around the corner now so it’s exciting times. The cars are just getting faster and faster now and are becoming more impressive on the technical side so it’ll be exciting to see where it goes in the future.”
The Jake Dennis pathway to Formula E
It's safe to say the path to Formula E has not been smooth for Dennis, having hopped around from series to series for some years before settling in Formula E.
Prior to Formula E, the boy from Nuneaton, Warwickshire, competed in the FIA World Endurance Championship until he was offered a contract by BMW Andretti Formula E team in 2020.
The then 25-year-old struggled to get to grips early on in his first season and his first win in Valencia proved to be a turning point for him.
“It definitely was [a weight lifted off the shoulders] especially after the tough start to the year we had, we hadn't really scored any points so to get that first win was a big relief, and it just predominantly gave me confidence that I could drive a Formula E car.
“When I first joined Formula E it was a hard transition between the two. I think GT racing is so unique. You have very different brake traces and style of braking so that really was the biggest difference, the braking and the software side to it.”
Having been at Andretti now since Season 7, Dennis is yet to experience what it is like to have a teammate for longer than a season having had a different teammate every year.
“It’s a bit of a shame because each teammate I have I always get along well with and then at the end of the year they move on. It would be nice to obviously continue for more than one year with a teammate.
“It’s a hard world racing, if you don't deliver then you can get replaced quickly so I understand why the teams did certain things but hopefully in the future, whether it's this year, next year or whenever, we can retain a more stable driver line up going forward.”
As Lewis Hamilton once said, there are no friends in motorsport, yet developing a relationship with your team remains crucial and moving to a different team remains a daunting task for some drivers.
When asked about developing his relationship with his team Dennis is quick to praise his team on how they welcomed him into their environment of work.
“It was relatively quick [to gel with the team],” said Dennis. “The only difference was it was quite a German team with BMW and it was very by the book, very rigid in terms of platform and structure which isn't really the way I go about working. I’m quite fluid and flexible, but they understand that and the way I work.
“Me and my engineer, who wasn’t German, we had a pretty good relationship and we just worked around our own things and made it work.
You just have to understand their views and be quite strict with yourself and not let anything run loose.”
Season 9 World Champion
Just the mention of Season 9 brings a smile to Dennis’ face. Two wins and 11 podiums meant he and the Andretti team would leave the final round in London as World Champions for that season.
It was something that Dennis, admittedly, did not expect. “After the Valencia pre-season testing we were one of the slowest of all four Porsche cars and it felt bad as well; the car did not feel nice to drive.
"It was difficult. The software wasn’t really working correctly and it was just a challenge to put the lap together.”
But despite having what Dennis described as a “demoralising” start to the campaign before a racing lap had even been completed, Andretti arrived at the first round in Mexico and dominated, taking victory with Dennis.
“Winning the first race of the year was probably the biggest surprise I’ve ever had in my career.
“I went in [to Mexico] thinking if I can try and get a top ten finish then it’ll be a good race, but we ended up dominating the race and won by eight seconds and started on the front row.
“From that point I always was a little bit more like okay, maybe we’ve got a shot, maybe we’ve landed the magic bullet and just figured out all our issues because Saudi was very good, we finished second twice and me and Pascal [Wehrlein] had a very comfortable championship lead.”
From there though, the team struggled and went four races on the bounce scoring no points.
However, their good results returned on the second visit to Berlin and a string of podiums followed, Dennis only leaving the podium once across the remaining nine races.
“Getting back on the podium streak in Berlin — where we had obviously had a string of no points-scoring finishes due to crashes, reliability and just not being quick enough — to then get back into P2 and have the five podiums in a row, really made a difference.”
However, the moment Dennis truly believed in a title victory came in Rome, as his rivals fell by the wayside and Dennis claimed victory in the second race. “I think leaving Rome I thought okay, I can actually win this thing now.”
The championship was sealed at his home race in London which remains a special event for Dennis with it being his home race but also the one that he claims to be “the most technical circuit on the calendar.”
“London’s always been good to me, I’ve always had good years there. Going [to the inside section of the track] you can actually hear the fans cheering when you go past, obviously to win a few times there now, it's special standing on that podium. The event itself is massive.”
As well as winning the World Championship, Dennis also had the opportunity to drive for Red Bull in the first Formula One Free Practice session in Abu Dhabi.
“It was an awesome experience,” said Dennis. “Christian [Horner] just approached me and said after the year you’ve had and the simulator work you’d been doing, would you like to drive our car?
“It was a nice way to say well done for your work and was a good opportunity for me to do better work for them in terms of how an actual F1 car should [behave].”
Future prospects
The Brit, who is now into his fifth season in Formula E, has six wins, 21 podiums, six pole positions and one World Championship title to his name.
Arguably not bad going for a driver who has driven for Andretti his whole Formula E career, a much smaller team with around half the team personnel in comparison to the larger manufacturers. This though, Dennis recognises, is the team’s Achilles heel.
“I think the depth inside the team [is where we need to improve]. I wouldn't say there's really a specific area of qualifying or the race, it's more just the depth of the team now.
“I think for us to go to the next level, it's just investing further into the team: getting more people in and back at base, developing the simulator and other areas.”
One retirement and a fourth place finish puts him 24 points adrift of championship leader António Félix da Costa after two rounds, yet the 29-year-old remains confident for the season ahead:
“I think we’re in a pretty good spot, I’m feeling confident inside the team again, after the difficulties last season. It's nice to have some pace again.”
He seems almost pained to recall the season before which saw him finish in seventh place overall, 76 points adrift of the top spot he had claimed the season prior.
Now, Andretti seems to have rectified their issues and Dennis is quick to praise his team for this.
“I think we’ve definitely turned around the performance in qualifying compared to Season 10 and then the racing itself has always been strong; we’ve never really seemed to struggle in that department and it seems the same again this year.”
As the season progresses, it's clear that Andretti is in the mix for championship glory. Had it not been for his opening round retirement, Dennis would be placed much higher in the overall standings.
Nevertheless, the Andretti driver remains positive about his championship chances.
“I think from the performance so far there's no reason why we can't push for the title. From my side, it’s going to be a close race like it always has been.
[Nick] Cassidy has had a pretty bad start with zero points but it only takes one win to really put yourself back in there, and sure enough it’ll happen at some point.
“If we finish top three I’ll be [expletive] at the end of the year, obviously I’ll be quite close to it and be disappointed like Mitch [Evans] and Nick [Cassidy] were in previous years.
But then if someone said you were gonna finish top three at the end of the year you'd take it.
“[It means that] you would have had a good season, won races, got podiums — so I think I’d leave London upset but in the off-season I would be pleased in the end.”
On this note, the conversation with Dennis concluded on an optimistic note. DIVEBOMB would like to thank Andretti and Dennis for taking time out for the interview, and we wish them the best for the remainder of the Formula E season.
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