How an overlooked talent has finally earned his dues in Formula E

Five years ago, the FIA Formula 3 European Championship was won by a guy who's gone on to taste victory in this season's IndyCar Series: Felix Rosenqvist. Current Formula 1 racers Antonio Giovinazzi, Charles Leclerc, Lance Stroll, George Russell and Alex Albon were second, fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh respectively. And eighth was BMW's new Formula E race winner, Maxi Gunther.

By contrast, the bloke who finished third has contested two races this year: one in a GT3 Aston Martin; the other in an LMP2 ORECA.

So while there was no doubting the talent of that driver - he had, after all, excelled with six race wins in 2015 among a rich harvest of young prospects - you can understand why he was shocked to be announced as the new driver at the BMW Andretti team for the forthcoming season.

Step forward Jake Dennis, who beat off what he thought was far-more-qualified opposition to take the BMW berth alongside Gunther in place of Mahindra-bound Alexander Sims.

"I think it's definitely a surprise to everyone, even myself to be honest," he reflects. "When the opportunity came about, to even do the evaluation test on the simulator... that was the first stage of the process, and then that led onto a test in the real car [at the short, twisty Varano circuit in Northern Italy], and the test went really well.

"Maxi was there as sort of a benchmark for me, and I guess I did a good enough job. The day went smooth, the team were impressed, and then it got left at that really.

"I didn't really hear too much of it for a couple of weeks, and I was a little bit like, 'Ahh, I'm not too sure if the opportunity's gone.'"

At this point, Dennis was very much focusing on plans with R-Motorsport, the team with which he has raced since 2018, but first we have to rewind a bit...

Dennis was one of the star graduates of the Racing Steps Foundation, the philanthropic scheme set up by wealthy oilman Graham Sharp and run by motorsport management guru Derek Walters to guide impecunious young British talents to the top of the sport. When RSF was winding down after a decade in the sport, Dennis was diversifying out of single-seaters - his last full season was in GP3 in 2016 - thanks in part to his lanky frame making it difficult, and bordering on unhealthy, for him to hit the weight required to not have a disadvantage against his rivals.

The GP3 campaign was with Arden International, and that team's link-up with LMP2 squad Jota Sport had also brought Dennis two World Endurance Championship outings in 2016, at the Spa 6 Hours and the Le Mans 24 Hours.

"I was definitely up against it. They've obviously got six DTM drivers to try to find a seat for, and for me to seal probably the best seat there is at BMW is a massive honour really" Jake Dennis

That relationship stalled for 2017, when Dennis instead linked up with Stuart Leonard, the stepson of RSF godfather Sharp, to race in the Blancpain GT Endurance Cup with top Audi squad WRT. Alongside megatalent Robin Frijns, Dennis and Leonard netted a best of second at Barcelona, while in the parallel Sprint Cup Dennis scored another second, this time with Pieter Schothorst, at the Hungaroring.

When R-Motorsport went full steam ahead with an Aston Martin Vantage-equipped Blancpain Endurance programme in 2018, that team's links with Jota and Arden brought Dennis, who by now had proven himself as a very fine GT driver, into the fold. Victory came at Silverstone, with Dennis sharing with Nicki Thiim and Matthieu Vaxiviere, and it was no surprise when Dennis was selected for R-Motorsport's ambitious DTM Aston project in 2019.

That programme was a one-season-only disaster, although Dennis's parallel GT outings with the Swiss squad brought second places at the Bathurst 12 Hours and the Barcelona Blancpain round. The 2020 season had begun with another Bathurst attack, before R-Motorsport took a sabbatical from the sport in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.

In the meantime, Dennis had also forged a link with ADD Management, the group behind Lando Norris, during the 2017 season. Norris was embarking on European F3 with Carlin with tons of cash and a big testing programme, and Dennis - who had raced for Carlin as an F3 rookie in 2014 - was drafted in to help out, including racing at three early-season events. The relationship with ADD heads Fraser Sheader and Mark Berryman continued, and was made formal during Dennis's 2020 summer of inactivity.

Then came the BMW Formula E assessment, and all went quiet...

Dennis picks up the story: "And then I got the phone call off Fraser from ADD, and he said, 'It looks like you're going to get the seat. They've done some other testing with other drivers.' And I guess I came out on top, and yeah, it was a massive surprise for everyone. I couldn't really believe it myself to be honest."

This isn't necessarily Dennis being modest, although he is a splendid and funny chap. It's more an acknowledgement that, with the DTM in turmoil, it would have been entirely logical for an established BMW superstar such as Marco Wittmann or Philipp Eng to take the berth.

"I was definitely up against it," admits Dennis. "They've obviously got six DTM drivers to try to find a seat for, and for me to seal probably the best seat there is at BMW is a massive honour really, that they've given me this opportunity to go ahead with it.

"I was always like, 'Ahh, I don't think it's going to happen,' because I had quite a few things going against me. Obviously I'm an Aston Martin driver, and they had so many talented BMW drivers going for the seat. It's the seat everyone wants. It wasn't just Eng going for it, they pretty much had all six DTM drivers going for it, they had GT drivers pushing for it. It was like eight people going for it, and just me on the outside.

"But I just did a good job, did the test well, and was hoping for the best you know? And then yeah, they picked me. I knew the test went well and I knew my speed was very good, but I still thought it was going to be difficult for them to choose me.

"But I think they put that aside and just put the fastest bloke in the car, which at the end of the day was me. So a massive thank you to BMW for that as well. I want to make that clear. For them to do that with me was a big thing."

It was Dennis's performance in the BMW simulator that got him into the car at that Varano test. Even back in his RSF junior single-seater days, he marked himself out as a star in the Williams F1 sim, and got picked up by Red Bull for the same role - this was his first paid job as a driver. And those skills led to him squeezing into the Red Bull F1 car for real and testing it in 2018 for sim-to-track correlation purposes.

"Yeah exactly," he asserts. "I'm pretty experienced on simulators now, with all the work I've done with Red Bull. With simulators, you either get them or you don't, and I'm pretty fast on them. And that all led to the Formula E test.

"People always say, 'Oh, simulators mean nothing and blah blah blah,' but in this case for me, if I was slow on the simulator I definitely wouldn't be a Formula E driver right now, that's for sure. It's a massive benefit for me, being able to give good feedback and to try and develop their simulator as well as they can and for them to evaluate me, with the way I work, the way I give feedback and my speed on the simulator, and it all progressed from there."

"I was honestly really, really impressed with the car. The power actually on the 250kW qualifying lap is pretty good - I was surprised by how good it was" Jake Dennis

Before the test, Dennis called up Frijns and Rosenqvist, with whom he formed a firm friendship during their Prema Powerteam F3 days in 2015, for advice about FE cars.

"I tried to build up as much knowledge as possible, speaking to Felix and Robin," he says. "And they said, 'The car's pretty good, but it's a Formula E and it has no grip.' But I was honestly really, really impressed with the car. The power actually on the 250kW qualifying lap is pretty good - I was surprised by how good it was.

"Obviously you are lacking quite a bit of grip in comparison to most single-seaters, there's no denying that, but just the challenge of understanding the software, understanding the tyre, and just the way the car works when it's regenning, is super-interesting and it's so different to anything you're used to.

"It's just a massive learning curve for your career, and to understand another part of motorsport is something I've always been interested in. As Formula E has developed massively over the last three years, I've always wanted to step into it and, given that chance, to try and understand everything now is the biggest challenge."

Dennis is also excited to get back into racing single-seaters, something he hasn't done since the 2017 Pau Grand Prix, the last of his three F3 outings that year with Carlin. And he hadn't driven one since those Red Bull F1 tests in 2018. Having touched the hem of F1, was he ever blinded by the lights of racing at the sport's pinnacle?

"Er, I was always quite realistic, because I knew I didn't have the superlicence points and I was quite established in GTs, and you just don't get superlicence points in GTs. The test went very well and Red Bull were, let's say, impressed, but I just knew nothing was ever going to come of it, even though they had a seat available, which obviously Albon then took at Toro Rosso.

"I just didn't have the superlicence points, which meant I had zero chance of getting the seat. I did my job, learned as much as I could obviously, enjoyed it massively because I knew I had no pressure because I knew the seat was never going to be mine. So yeah, it was just a massive thrill to drive an F1 car, especially with the generation they're at now. Next year they'll be good but from there onwards they're only really going to get slower [under the new regulations], which is a bit of a shame. So yeah, I drove the generation where it's at its best."

Now Dennis is linking up with another FE rising talent in the form of Gunther. They were team-mates on one occasion in F3, when the Austro-Bavarian transferred to Prema for the final round of his rookie season in 2015 at Hockenheim. Gunther then stayed at the Italian team for two more years, and came up against Dennis when he made his Norris-wingman Carlin cameo in 2017.

This included a highly entertaining slipstreaming race at Monza. Prema pair Gunther and Callum Ilott were at the time identified as Norris's most likely title rivals. Dennis battled early on with Carlin team-mates Norris and Jehan Daruvala, but his tyres faded quickly and he dropped back.

From then on, he built a defensive wall of which Donald Trump would have been proud against the increasingly desperate Ilott, who as a result lost place after place. Gunther, who had qualified poorly, made slow progress through the midfield, but thanks to Dennis's hard-but-fair Ilott-blocking he suddenly caught the group ahead in the closing stages... and punted Dennis down the escape road at the Rettifilo chicane.

"Oh yeah!" Dennis laughs. "Me and Maxi like... Quality. We had our races together and we had a couple of incidents, but I think we've both grown up since then and we're both professional now. It's a lot more mature environment between us. We both just want the best for each other.

"He's been a massive help so far, just helping me understand the software. We're now both at a different stage of our career. You know what it's like in single-seaters at that age - you just don't want to let anyone past, you want to win every single race possible to prove yourself.

"Now we're a lot older, we're a lot more mature in the way we go about things. I'm happy to have Maxi as my team-mate. We get along well, we're both young, and we both want to push each other extremely hard and push the team. I think it's a good combination. There's not a massive amount of experience between us though, but as you've seen he can win races, and there's no reason why I can't, and the team's certainly capable of winning races as well."

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It should indeed be a good, complementary line-up, with Dennis alongside the friendly, polite and very earnest Gunther, another driver who had to make progress the hard way, relying on his ability rather than any great family resources to earn his opportunities. And, with his experience, particularly at R-Motorsport, Dennis also brings a wealth of knowledge from working with drivers such as established Aston aces Thiim and Maxime Martin (below), and DTM stars Paul di Resta and Daniel Juncadella. Plus, in the case of this year's Bathurst 12 Hours, Down Under superstars Scott Dixon and Rick Kelly.

"Right now it's definitely my future career that I want to pursue, and it's already hard enough trying to do it as a rookie, let alone jumping between cars and stuff like that. So right now I'll focus 100% on Formula E" Jake Dennis

"Bathurst is an incredible race - it's my favourite race of the year," enthuses Dennis, who neglects to mention the qualifying-topping lap he set on his circuit debut in 2019, which has gone into Mount Panorama legend. "To do it alongside Scott and Rick was such a massive experience and learning curve for me, just to see how they work. Those guys aren't experienced in the car, so I was the one who qualified the car, I was sort of leading the team, but it was so cool to work alongside Scott and Rick.

"I learnt a lot from the way they deliver feedback, the way they go about the weekend, and it certainly made me a better driver, even though they were asking me how to drive the car and how to be faster, but I was sort of learning from them in the way they generally go about a day in being a professional driver."

Dennis's other race outing this year came in the Spa European Le Mans Series round in August, sharing Jota's ORECA with Anthony Davidson and Roberto Gonzalez on a Le Mans warm-up for the team - in this case he was keeping the seat warm for Antonio Felix da Costa, who was busy winning the FE crown in Berlin.

"To get that call was awesome - I'd always wanted to drive the LMP2 new generation. Those cars are insane - they're so fast, they have a lot of downforce, they're a serious bit of kit, as much as I don't really fit in them! It was a cool experience and I enjoyed it a lot."

Dennis is hoping that his R-Motorsport/Jota/Arden connection can remain. Formula E manufacturers are, after all, quite tolerant of their drivers wandering off to burn fossil fuels in between their electric activity.

"I am honestly pretty sad that my days with R-Motorsport have come to an end for now," he says. "Those guys have helped me so much over the past three years. They gave me a professional career. We've won and done some incredible races. And they've really brought back to life my single-seater career. I wouldn't have been able to do it without them really.

"They gave me the opportunity to go ahead with this BMW thing, and they're really happy for me. They're a family team, they just want the best for me, which is nice considering I'm one of their main drivers. For them to let me go is a bit of shame, but they're happy and they just want the best for me. Hopefully I can still do a race for them here and there in the future.

"In the near future I really want to focus on BMW and Formula E, and if BMW supply me some GT races I'll definitely look to do them towards the end of the year. But there is an outside chance I could end up doing a race here and there for R-Motorsport.

"BMW are happy for me to do some races with them if I wish. But I think right now Fomula E is definitely my goal, my future career that I want to pursue, and it's already hard enough trying to do it as a rookie, let alone jumping between cars and stuff like that. So right now I'll focus 100% on Formula E."

That's important when you consider the fate of Dennis's fellow RSF graduate James Calado, who dovetailed a Jaguar FE campaign with his Ferrari WEC commitments, and didn't make the electric grade.

"I think it's important to just try and compare myself to Maxi, then just to try and have good results, get points on the board," says Dennis. "You can come in as a rookie and do well - Nyck de Vries did a good job this year. I do know it's difficult. I really rate James Calado as a driver and he obviously struggled to get his head around it. Hopefully I don't have the same issue, but so far so good in the car.

"I feel quite comfortable. I just want a good career, to try and get some podiums if possible and see where we're at halfway through the year when I've actually got some races under my belt."

Even without Calado, Dennis is one of three RSF Old Boys on the FE grid, alongside Oliver Turvey at NIO and Oliver Rowland at Nissan e.dams, and their salaries will all be helping pay benefactor Sharp back a little.

"It's a bit of a reunion, isn't it?" remarks Dennis. "It's cool that Oliver Rowland is there - I have a really good relationship with him, he's a great bloke. Oliver Turvey's quite a bit older than me so we've never really had that close relationship, but to have three RSF drivers on the Formula E grid is a testament to how good that programme was.

"I'm just looking forward to having close races again, but hopefully not as close as it was in 2013 when me and Oliver [Rowland] crashed in Formula Renault [in an infamous Pau Grand Prix accident]! But the whole grid in Formula E is sensational, and to race against those guys is massive... You've got the da Costas, the Vergnes, the di Grassis, who have been there for a long time, and it's cool to have my name up amongst them."

Bearing in mind who Dennis raced against and beat in 2015, his name should already have been established among theirs.