How Jake Dennis’ struggles turned him into a Formula E front-runner

If Joe Lycett was ever to invite Jake Dennis onto an episode of Channel 4’s Travel Man, the viewers would be privy to an anxious ride through a world of travel-based nightmares involving numerous delays, luggage mishaps and missed train stops.

Those misfortunes have earned Dennis a proxy following through the “Jake Dennis Struggles” social media accounts – where his trials and tribulations are laid bare. Those struggles also extend to forgotten drive-through coffees and misuse of household appliances – where, on one occasion, Dennis slathered the insides of his dishwasher with washing-up liquid and ended up with an impromptu student union-grade foam party in his kitchen.

Luckily, Dennis is quite good at operating a car. Having emerged as one of Formula E’s strongest drivers in his one-and-a-half seasons in the championship, he’s cemented his place in the all-electric single-seater championship after a few years off the radar in GT racing.

It’s been quite a circuitous road for Dennis to get back behind the wheel of a formula car but, on his return, he’s been busy showing what the world was missing with the Avalanche Andretti squad.

“Grab a seat,” Jake Dennis says as Autosport is ushered into the drivers’ cubicle in the Avalanche Andretti garage, and toward an empty foldable garden chair that is presumably mostly occupied by Oliver Askew. Dennis, all 6’1” of him, is reclined in his own chair with a leg extended against the wall. Following the afternoon’s shakedown in Rome and a couple of debriefs, the British driver looks relaxed. Focused.

Unfortunately, the weekend didn’t quite pan out for him despite qualifying on the front row for race two and yielded two point-less races, as Andretti struggled with getting the right software together for the races in Rome’s EUR district.

“It's been up and down,” Dennis reflects on the opening rounds of the championship. “We started the season off great in Saudi with two top five finishes podium and getting into the final and the duels. And then Mexico was a sort of slap around the face really, sort of a bit of a reality check of how difficult Formula E can be, you know, we were either expected to be quite quick, and we were probably one of the slowest teams. So it's been, you know, a challenging time to try and get on top of that.”

Jake Dennis, Andretti Motorsport, BMW iFE.21

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

When Dennis first turned up in Formula E, few expected such a breakout maiden season as he partnered Maximilian Guenther at the then-works BMW Andretti squad. Not through any doubts about his ability, of course, but through the tough challenge that Formula E presents a rookie with as they attempt to grapple with the lift-and-coast nature of racing, and the paddle-activated regeneration phase behind the wheel. You need only look at the struggles that Antonio Giovinazzi, an incredibly handy driver at Formula 1 level, to see how tough FE is to crack.

Sure, Dennis went through the growing pains at the start of his first year in the championship. The Warwickshire native struggled to trouble the scorers in the opening pair of rounds at Diriyah and Rome, entering the third round at Valencia’s Circuit Ricardo Tormo with nothing on the board. There, Dennis’ season turned around in a highly contentious pair of races, and secured a calm and collected victory in the second race from pole, beating Andre Lotterer and Alex Lynn to his first win.

From there, Dennis’ surprise assault on the championship blossomed. Monaco offered little, but back-to-back fifth places at Puebla and a couple more failures to score in New York preceded another victory at London’s opening ExCeL race, which set Dennis up for a shot at the title at the Berlin finale - before it all quite literally came to a shuddering halt as his rear axle jammed under braking at the start of the third lap.

Such was the impact that Dennis had at Andretti, the American team did everything it could to extricate him from his BMW deal and bring him into the fold for a second season. For his part, Dennis wanted to stick with the team and hope to build on his excellent first year in Formula E, where he’s taken more of a leadership role in the team as Andretti brought in a number of new personnel over the off-season – including team-mate Askew, new to Formula E from IndyCar.

When Dennis first turned up in Formula E, few expected such a breakout maiden season as he partnered Maximilian Guenther at the then-works BMW Andretti squad

“I had a bit more of a leading role of just trying to guide people, especially like obviously Oliver, in the right direction of the systems and software have quite a good understanding. Thankfully, my data engineer from last year has stayed with me, which is super important. He's probably one of the key guys in the team. I work super close with him along with my engineer - so me, him and my engineer, we have a really good relationship.

“Obviously on Oliver's side, there's a lot to learn, you know, he's got three new people around in learning the software themselves. So it's a bit more challenging. But I don't think we can use it as an excuse. We arrived in Saudi competitive straightaway and just need to try and keep progressing on that, and keep moving forward.”

“My side is obviously more experienced. And that's probably why Oliver is following more of my setup and my direction of where I want my car, which is completely understandable. That makes sense. I was very much the same with Max until I started to understand exactly what I wanted from the car.

Jake Dennis, BMW i Andretti Motorsport, 1st position, drinks champagne on the podium

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

“At one point he will get fully up to speed with it and work out exactly what he likes. And then he'll start to go in his own direction, which is just good for both of us. Because then you've got double the knowledge of where the car is. At the moment, it's just two cars on the same setup, and you limit yourself in certain situations. But he's done a good job so far.”

Dennis’ rise from rookie to team leader in Formula E is even more impressive when one considers that Dennis hadn’t raced in single-seater machinery since 2017, his final season of Formula 3.

Across his F3 career, Dennis beat the likes of Charles Leclerc, George Russell and Alexander Albon - all bound for Formula 1 - while Dennis was largely forgotten about despite his stellar results in the junior categories. He also beat some stern competition in GP3 in his sole 2016 season in the championship – reigning Formula E champion Nyck de Vries among them - but struggled to find opportunities beyond the third-tier category on the ladder to F1. That, Dennis says, was a mixture of wanting to forge his own path, knowing that it would be difficult to find chances in F1 without the weight of a junior programme behind him – and with his height.

“I think my sponsors probably could have done a year or two in GP2 or F2,” Dennis recalls. “But I got to the point where I was like, I need to start earning money. I'm quite tall, and I just didn't really see myself as getting an opportunity in Formula 1. Even if I say, went in and won the championship, like I think at that stage of everyone's career, you really need a junior programme behind you, which I wasn't on.

“So I was just like, ‘let's make the switch to sportscars’. My sponsors were happy to do that. They put one year of sponsorship into me, and then I turned professional. I look back now and I think it was a great decision, because I think I would have just spent two years in F2 trying to win it. Maybe I win that, maybe not, I don't know - but it would have probably just been a waste of £4 million for everyone's sake and two years of my career, where I could have been earning a career. Nevertheless, I've had a great career in sportscars. It was super good, and I really enjoyed it.”

From there, Dennis began to follow the path to become a professional driver in the field of GT racing. That led him to racing with R-Motorsport, which then offered the Brit a chance to experience another new discipline as it was due to hook up with HWA for its upcoming DTM project with an Aston Martin Vantage.

Dennis was brought into the fold to pilot one of its four cars, but the project came and went after just a season with barely a whimper, as poor results had led Aston to put a pin in its backing.

Jake Dennis, R-Motorsport, Aston Martin Vantage AMR

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

“The GT project, what we had was highly efficient, well run, very good project. The balance of performance we had, was not great, so it was difficult to be able to get results, but we still had pole positions and we still had wins. And I think we finished fifth in the championship. It wasn't bad, but it was challenging.

“The DTM project was a joint partnership with HWA at the time. And HWA are obviously a great sort of foundation of DTM. But the chemistry between R-Motorsport and HWA was difficult. And we had a very challenging year in DTM, with reliability and just general performance with the car and the engine. So it was always going to be hard work. And then unfortunately, the project folded after just one year, and then obviously COVID hit at the same time. I was sort of a bit of a spare part in 2020.”

Thus, Dennis was left with little to keep him occupied as the COVID-19 pandemic grabbed the world in a headlock. Locked down, Dennis’ sole call of duty was simply, erm, Call of Duty.

He credits his Red Bull role as one of its official simulator drivers in keeping him ticking along as racing opportunities appeared at a premium - a role Dennis has held since 2018. On non-Formula E weekends, he thus performs race support to Red Bull’s F1 squad - moving to Milton Keynes to be close to the team’s facility on the south side of the town.

Across his F3 career, Dennis beat the likes of Charles Leclerc, George Russell and Alexander Albon - all bound for Formula 1 - while Dennis was largely forgotten about despite his stellar results in the junior categories

Dennis explained how the pandemic had affected his racing opportunities, after kicking off the year with an outing at Bathurst.

“Red Bull kept me occupied. I think it was a year where they just rammed in like 16 races in like four months, so I was at Red Bull basically every weekend, basically all week just doing race support for those guys, I think I did all but one race for them.

“I moved to Milton Keynes through COVID so I was super close to the factory. And I just wanted to move away out of my family's home and sort of kept myself occupied with that, but nevertheless, about the racing I only did Bathurst at the start of 2020 just before COVID hit and then one race in LMP2 in Spa. And that was it.

Jake Dennis, Andretti Motorsport, BMW iFE.21

Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images

“It was very much twiddling my thumbs wanting to race but I was contracted around R-Motorsport, so I couldn't race but I was still getting paid. But I was still bored at home playing on my PlayStation, playing Call of Duty, driving the F1 sim, which was good and keeping me occupied that way. But, you know, everyone was still racing, to a certain extent. So it was a bit more of a tough time, for sure.”

“I'm not quite as good [at Call of Duty] as Dan Ticktum, but I played a lot through COVID. I haven't been playing for about eight or nine months now, because I played so much last year!”

Then, the Formula E chance came around. With Alexander Sims leaving the BMW Andretti squad to move to Mahindra, BMW threw together what Dennis describes as a “seven-way shootout” to determine the identity of its next driver. Dennis came in as an outsider; the other drivers all had lengthy histories with BMW across DTM and GT racing, while Dennis had very little. The likes of Lucas Auer, Philipp Eng and Joel Eriksson were all in the mix for the drive, but Dennis explained that the offer came down to between him and Sheldon van der Linde – with current Aston Martin F1 team principal Mike Krack in charge of making the call.

“The test went really well, the simulator went well, And I think having some junior single seater experience prior to, you know, obviously, my sports car career helped me. But what really didn't help me it was that everyone else is a BMW driver already. And I was an Aston Martin driver.

“So politically, it was a difficult decision for BMW to make. But, you know, thanks to Mike Krack, who's obviously Aston Martin now, he said, 'we're going to put the fastest guy in the car.' And that was that. So big shout out to Mike for really going against all the political stuff and just putting me in, and obviously I did the job in the end, but it was a difficult decision for him and a lot of pressure for me to deliver.”

After chalking up a ninth at Monaco, where Dennis felt he could have bagged a fifth or sixth-place finish before encountering a broken wheel arch and was set to retire, the Brit is five points worse off than what he had at this stage last year. But by then, he’d secured a win in a wild Valencia round – and the opportunities to collect his third Formula E win haven’t been as forthcoming this year as the field looks even tighter than before.

But Dennis is well aware that his fortunes can change at the drop of a hat, such is the capricious nature of Formula E. With Berlin next up, the scene of his unlikely championship charge coming to an end, Dennis is ready to turn his fortunes around at the Tempelhof venue and reignite his championship aspirations.

“I'm excited to get back to Berlin and get involved – while there’s the issue from last year, nevertheless, we were good there last year - which is the most important thing going into this year.”

For his sake, let’s hope the trip to Germany is free of any typical Jake Dennis struggles.

Jake Dennis, Andretti Motorsport, BMW iFE.21

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images