Dennis: Going against Diriyah E-Prix team call "won us the race"

Reigning Formula E champion Dennis took a comprehensive victory in the second race of the season, cruising to a 13-second win over polesitter Jean-Eric Vergne in Saudi Arabia.

Having held onto his starting position of third in the opening stages, Dennis found himself in the lead by the end of lap four after Vergne and Mitch Evans ahead had both taken the first of their Attack Modes.

Dennis took the decision to wait until lap six before taking his first activation despite a radio call from his team to take it sooner.

The Briton believes running an extra lap allowed him to remain ahead of Evans, claiming, “I think it won us the race”.

“Basically, we just didn’t quite agree or align on the Attack Mode because if they made me take it, I would have come out on the risk of still being behind Evans, so I said let’s go one more lap,” Dennis told Autosport.

“We almost came out ahead of Vergne but ultimately that allowed us to get the jump [on him at the second Attack Mode] and when we were leading the race we could do our own pace and take the lead that way.

“Really good strategy call and for them letting me do it, that’s one of the good things with the team is they sort of allow me to do my own race and have faith in my decisions behind the wheel.”

Jake Dennis, Andretti Global, Porsche 99X Electric Gen3, Jean-Eric Vergne, DS Penske, DS E-Tense FE23

Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images

Jake Dennis, Andretti Global, Porsche 99X Electric Gen3, Jean-Eric Vergne, DS Penske, DS E-Tense FE23

Vergne believes second was the maximum that he could achieve from the race, having overconsumed in the opening segment when battling Dennis and Evans, with all three leading at points.

It meant the DS Penske driver was forced to conserve energy considerably in the latter stages, which exasperated the gap to Dennis at the flag.

“All of us consumed quite a lot and I think Jake was just [driving] so easy when he was leading. He could have saved more and had an easy end of the race and that was not the case for me,” Vergne told Autosport.

“In terms of pure performance, second place was not deserved when you look at the performance, so we can be very happy to be here, and we’ve done a good job with all the calls to salvage this position.”