Dennis backs himself to defend title

Reigning Formula E World Champion Jake Dennis is confident that he can defend his title, something which has previously only been achieved by one driver.

Two-time Formula E Champion Jean-Eric Vergne is the only driver to have ever successfully won two titles in the all-electric series back-to-back. Vergne claimed the final title of the Gen1 era back in Season 4, and then won the first title of the Gen2 era in Season 5.

After three rounds of Season 10, Dennis does already find himself 29 points behind championship leader Nick Cassidy, who has claimed a podium in his first three races for Jaguar.

Nevertheless, the Andretti driver believes that he can defend his crown and actually thinks the changes to the calendar have worked in Porsche's favour – Andretti are a customer Porsche team.

"I do," insisted Dennis on Formula E's 'The Added Lap'. "I back myself, Porsche and Andretti to try and replicate it. You know, losing Rome, even though I did really well, that actually just helps us because that track is designed for the Jaguar powertrain, and London is designed for the Jaguar powertrain.

"Whereas these faster circuits, generally suit us a little bit more. So having like Misano, Portland should lean a little bit more into our strengths and less of the Jaguars traction benefits they have.

"So I'd say the calendar is a little bit more level this year. I mean, obviously, Nick's had an incredible start of the season. He's looking really strong, even in Saudi, which is still fast and flowing. There's only like two or three traction zones. So it seems like they've obviously improved their weaknesses. We've improved ours a little bit."

New software 'just didn't work'

The main reason Dennis won the title last season was because his consistency was phenomenal. Dennis claimed 11 podiums across the 16 races, a new Formula E record.

So far this year, he has not demonstrated the same level of consistency, despite having won the opening race of the recent Diriyah double-header. The Briton finished ninth in Mexico City ahead of his win in the Middle East, before he finished P12 in the second event in Saudi Arabia.

Even he admits that he has not been consistent so far in 2024 but that there is a reason behind it.

"Yeah, just no consistency compared to last year, we were in such a good rhythm," Dennis admitted. "In the first race we tried something on the software side, we ran a more updated software compared to Porsche. They decided to take the old one, we decided to take the new one.

"It just didn't work. It just wasn't ready. So we went back to the old software for Diriyah, won the first race by a good margin. I was like okay we're back to normality, but then we got smacked in the face by the Formula E unpredictability and woke up the next day and we were terrible."