“To become world champion is something we all dream of.” For Jake Dennis, that dream became a reality in the London E-Prix as he sealed the 2022-2023 Formula E title in front of his home crowd. It certainly wasn’t easy, with wheel-to-wheel battles and two red flags putting Dennis’s crowning in doubt until the very final moments.
In fact, it has been far from easy all season for the Briton, even if his campaign did start in almost perfect fashion with a win at the opening round in Mexico City and runner-up finishes in the Diriyah E-Prix double-header.
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Incredibly, between Diriyah and the second race in Berlin – a period of nearly three months – he failed to score a single point across four races. But Dennis dug deep and what followed was the start of a purple patch for the Andretti Autosport driver, who went on to record five consecutive podiums.
A return to the top step finally came in the second Rome E-Prix, where he claimed an impressive lights-to-flag victory, while behind him title rivals Mitch Evans and Nick Cassidy collected each other. Their collision essentially handed Dennis a decisive advantage.
The title is the crowning glory so far of a career in which Dennis has gone up against the best the sport has to offer, beating them on numerous occasions, but never quite being in a position to make the jump into Formula 1. He’s sampled modern F1 machinery, making two official test outings with Red Bull in Spain and Hungary in 2018, and he remains the squad’s development driver – his feedback clearly highly regarded and playing its own part in the team’s current dominance.
Dennis seemed destined for success as a youngster, having been picked up by the Racing Steps Foundation programme at the age of 12 as he continued to build an impressive karting CV.
He cut his teeth in cars via the new-for-2011 InterSteps Championship, a low-budget series backed by RSF itself and using Formula BMW’s Mygale chassis, where he claimed the title with eight victories. More wins and another title followed the next year in the Formula Renault 2.0 Northern European Cup, earning him a slot as a finalist for the McLaren Autosport BRDC Award – which he duly won.
Source: Autosport