Autosport 2021 Top 50: #15 Jake Dennis
3rd in Formula E
Top 50 Drivers of 2021
Autosport's team of expert journalists got together to try to assess who were the top 50 drivers of 2021. Here are the results.
Don’t believe anyone who says they predicted Jake Dennis to finish third in his rookie Formula E campaign. He smashed expectations after becoming the surprise winner of a shootout to land the second seat at BMW Andretti.
A point-less debut outing in Saudi Arabia might have set the tone, but he controlled a peloton-style train to perfection at Valencia to land his first win. His run in Mexico was sound and in London he took to the top step again to cap a superb display.
This all came as he trounced his hot-shot team-mate Maximilian Guenther and squeezed remarkable performance out of a mid-tier powertrain.
How Dennis compares to FE’s other star rookies
Jake Dennis was only eight points shy of a remarkable debut Formula E title. Had he not crashed out of the Berlin finale – for which he wasn’t to blame – and converted the chance, his newcomer status would have done nothing to undermine the series just because he could plug in and play. He was that impressive.
With two wins under his belt, Autosport reckoned he “delivered the best-ever rookie campaign” when ranking him third in the 2021 Formula E driver rankings. But the Briton faced stiff competition.
Take the inaugural Formula E campaign of 2014-15 out of the equation for obvious reasons (they were all rookies!), and Dennis sits in the company of Robin Frijns (2015-16), Felix Rosenqvist (2016-17), Andre Lotterer (2017-18), Oliver Rowland (2018-19) and Nyck de Vries (2019-20) as the best full-season freshers in the championship’s history.
Dennis led the pack in Valencia against expectations on his way to a dominant maiden win
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
It’s Frijns and Rosenqvist who provide the stiffest competition to the title of ‘best rookie’. The former had to contend with obsolete technology after that term’s Andretti motor was so woefully unreliable in testing that it had to be aborted. Frijns took the year-old spec powertrain of 2014-15 to 12th in the standings and particularly excelled in qualifying. But while Frijns got the better of his then team-mate Antonio Felix da Costa – whose quality is without question – the poor equipment meant reduced pressure.
Rosenqvist capitalised on a front-running steed in that season’s Mahindra to gallop to third in the championship at the first time of asking. He chalked a victory and a further four podium visits. But whereas Dennis refused to pander to his decorated rivals, most notably when he defied expectations to control the second race in Valencia from the front, Rosenqvist spun under pressure in a battle for points in New York City.
This error arrived as part of a late season dip in form to lose the title. Dennis, meanwhile, only improved as the championship wore on. Where it not for the invertor fault in the German capital, ruling out driver error, he would have delivered the goods right when it mattered most.
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