Dennis will make his first official grand prix weekend appearance for Red Bull when he drives the team’s RB19 in FP1 at the Abu Dhabi season finale next month.
The 28-year-old, who won the Formula E title last season with Andretti Global, has been a Red Bull simulator driver since 2018 and completed two test session outings that year in Spain and Hungary at the wheel of the RB14.
The call-up for Abu Dhabi came as a surprise to the Briton, with each F1 team required to run a rookie in each of its cars during one FP1 session this season.
“To a certain extent it was [a surprise], obviously I definitely don’t see myself as a junior driver or anything like that,” Dennis exclusively told Autosport.
“My focus is purely on Formula E and try and deliver a good result there, so I didn’t really expect much of it [the call].
“I just thought it was going to be more simulator work or something along those lines. But yeah, it was a welcome surprise.”
Dennis says that he is still unaware of the reason behind the opportunity given his age, which he says “doesn’t really play in my favour”, but hopes that the chance will allow him to better correlate between the car’s characteristics on-track and the simulator.
“Honestly, I’m not really too sure, I never really asked the question to Christian and unaware of the reasons behind it,” he said.
Source: Autosport