Reigning World Champion Jake Dennis has admitted that he probably wouldn’t have won the opening race of the Diriyah E-Prix double-header, had he followed the team’s strategy.
Dennis won Friday evening’s race by a ridiculous 13 seconds ahead of Jean-Éric Vergne, after he took the strategy into his own hands. The Andretti Formula E driver ignored the team when they told him to take his first Attack Mode, a decision which ultimately won him the race.
He decided when he took his first Attack Mode, a call which saw him remain in the race lead. Nobody ended up having an answer to Dennis’ blistering pace, with his first win of 2024 having truly kick-started his title defence.
“Felt very good, you know,” Dennis told Motorsport Week. “Yeah, amazing day. Very much back to how we, we know. And I expected this coming into the weekend to be back at the front. I didn’t expect to win by 13 seconds, but to have a race like that is always awesome. And, yeah, thoroughly enjoyed it.”
Dennis ignoring Andretti was a crucial part of the race, as he would’ve lost the lead had he listened to them. The Briton made the bold call after seeing what was going on around him, with him having decided to wait an additional lap and push for a bit longer.
Had he listened to the team, then he thinks the win wouldn’t have been his.
“I mean, yeah, the numbers are obviously saying to take it, but I could see a few things,” Dennis said. “Obviously, I know how fast the pace is around me. I can sort of see how much JEV is pushing.
“I can feel how much I’ve got left in the tank and I felt like I could go a lot quicker and that allowed me to push into that gap when we ignored the call to go for attack and that ultimately allowed us to take the lead and sort of drive us into the distance.
“So, yeah, we just need to analyse a little bit tonight of why that call came, because I don’t think we would have won the race today if I took attack.”
Dennis now has the chance to complete the Diriyah-double, something which will be a challenge given that Saturday’s race is a lap shorter. This is a concern for a lot of the drivers, as Friday’s race was already on the verge of being flat out. This made overtaking very challenging.
As a result, Dennis thinks qualifying “will be super important” on Saturday as the pace will be even faster.
“It won’t be far off,” he admitted. “Qualifying will be super important. I mean, even today it wasn’t flat out from start to finish, but it’s just hard to overtake when there’s no strategy. So, ideally, we’d make the race tomorrow like a lap longer, but it’s actually a lap shorter, which is a bit of a shame.
“But if you start on the front row, you want as fast as possible, you want the race to be as short as possible and drive into the distance. But, yeah, we’ll see. Hopefully we can have a good one.”
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