Jake Dennis fresh Andretti deal 'relief' as Formula E silly season to intensify

Jake Dennis has revealed the "relief" he feels to have secured his spot on the Formula E grid for Gen4 next season after signing a multi-year contract extension with Andretti.

It was announced last week that Dennis had agreed to extend his stay at Andretti into the Gen4 era, which will be introduced next season.

The Season 9 world champion has only ever competed for the American outfit in Formula E and is in his sixth campaign with them.

His deal was set to conclude at the end of the current campaign, with talks having been held with other teams, including factory squads.

However, Dennis has insisted that his "intention" from the get-go was to remain with Andretti, who allow him to support Red Bull F1 as a simulator driver and race for BMW in the GT World Challenge.

Asked if his intention was always to stick with Andretti and whether talks were held elsewhere, Dennis told RacingNews365: "Yeah, my intention was always to stick with Andretti. This was always my number one priority from day one with Roger [Griffiths] and my management.

"Both parties were very clear on what we wanted to get out of everything, and we'll see. Andretti just had to meet my requirements, which they managed to do.

"I'm very happy with where we finished up in terms of our final agreement. But yeah, there were definitely negotiations with other teams. There was a lot of interest from manufacturers.

"I think, naturally, there is definitely some movement coming from other drivers, and that naturally opened up seat opportunities. But yeah, there was nothing really too in-depth with other teams."

Contract talks distraction risk

Dennis is the first of the drivers who had been without a deal for Gen4 to secure himself a seat, taking a major player off the market.

Not only has Dennis' continuation with Andretti removed him from silly season, it has also taken a lucrative spot at the Indianapolis-based team away from others still without a deal.

Andretti's announcement of retaining Dennis could spark silly season into life as Formula E prepares for its Madrid E-Prix in a fortnight, particularly as another large gap follows before Berlin.

For Dennis, he no longer has the distraction of negotiating while also focusing on racing, instead being able to watch the chaos unfold in the driver market.

Discussing whether being removed from silly season offers a sense of joy and relief, Dennis explained: "I don't know if I take joy in it, but I'm just relaxed — it's more just a relaxed feeling now. There's always tension to be had when you're going back and forth in negotiations, when you're talking about your requirements, your salary, your money, your bonus.

"It's a tense period because they can just turn around and go, 'No' or 'Yes'. So you're very much on edge. And this generally kind of happens when you're in the middle of a race season as well. You want to perform at a high level when you're asking for these options in your contract.

"But yeah, now it's all done and you just feel a relief, you could say. You've got that security, and you can kind of switch off from the contract side and just focus on driving the race car as quickly as possible, because you can get caught up in it.

"You can focus too much on trying to get absolutely everything and then forget what you're actually trying to do, which is to drive a race car fast.

"But yeah, now obviously for me that's sort of taken care of. We can just focus on trying to win this championship, or win as many races as possible this year, and watch everything else unfold in front of us."