Dennis breaks Formula E podium drought with help from behind

Jake Dennis returned to the podium for the first time in over a year in the first race of the Monaco E-Prix, something that brought a huge amount of relief to the Season 9 champion.

Not since the Misano double-header in April 2024 – where he finished second in both races – has Dennis stood on the rostrum, and with third in Monaco, he said the result “honestly felt like a win.”

“It’s been a minute,” he said. “It honestly felt like a win, especially with what happened in that race.”

Dennis qualified seventh after making a mistake on what would turn out to be his only lap in the Duels, and then got a 5s penalty for overspeeding during a full course yellow, but was able to negate the drama. Despite ultimately being happy with the day’s end result, he feels like he could have achieved even more.

“It was definitely worthy of better than P7 in quali,” he said. “[It was] just a really good car, good calls, and then just trying to avoid an incident with Nyck (de Vries) really underneath the tunnel was what cost us the 5s penalty – it was either hit the back of him or jump off the brake and overspeed. I was hoping they would be a bit more lenient with it, but ultimately took it.”

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Dennis was helped to third by his Andretti teammate Nico Mueller, who cycled to the lead after losing less time by taking his Pit Boost stop during a full course yellow period. He should have been in contention to win, but an issue with the charger during his stop put paid to those hopes.

“Obviously you push the possibilities to the limit and sometimes things can go wrong,” Mueller said. “As long as you don’t make a mistake as a team and you do the operation correctly, the FIA can release the energy virtually into the car, which was the case for us.

“I thought everything was fine, I burned energy to be able to get into that position so it was a strategic decision to burn more energy than others, but still I think I was in a comfortable place. I had good energy available; the problem was that when you only get virtual energy release and you didn’t actually charge the battery, at some point you’re limited by the state of charge, not the actual energy allocation.

“That was our problem. I ran out of state of charge. I had to manage that even though I had energy available. I used one lap less than the rest of the field, [but] I had to manage the state of charge, and that’s what in the end cost us the win.”

With that in mind, Mueller let Dennis past to aid his hopes, and served as a rear gunner to him while Dennis eked out enough of a gap to negate his penalty.

“I don't think I'd be okay today if it wasn't for his help,” Dennis said.

Mueller added, “I was managing that issue so it didn’t make sense to hold Jake up. At that point it looked like he maybe even had a chance to go for the win or at least P2, so I think it was an okay decision.”