An unhappy Jake Dennis described race winner Pascal Wehrlein’s defence of his lead as “ridiculous” after finishing second behind his rival in the first Jakarta eprix.
The Andretti driver was beaten to the win by Wehrlein by less than half a second following a race-long duel between the two championship contenders.However, Dennis slammed Wehrlein’s defence of his lead in the latter half of the race and said he was baffled why the stewards had not investigated the winner for his driving standards. Race control gave no indication during the 36-lap contest it intended to examine any of Wehrlein’s moves.
One notable incident occured on the 24th lap of the race as Wehrlein led Dennis, Maximilian Guenther and Stoffel Vandoorne. Dennis, who had passed his two pursuers to move up to second place, closed on Wehrlein towards the end of the pit straight and pulled to the inside to attempt a move into turn one.
Wehrlein pulled right to defend his position, with Dennis cutting to the outside in response. The pair entered the braking zone for the first turn side-by-side, but Wehrlein was able to retain his lead with the inside line, while Dennis then came under pressure himself from Guenther behind. Speaking after the race, Dennis said he was not impressed by the Porsche driver’s defending along the main straight.
“I’m pretty annoyed, to be honest,” Dennis said. “The manoeuvre with Pascal was ridiculous.
“I had to hit so much pressure to avoid hitting the back of him. I don’t know how he got away with that, to be honest. It’s ridiculous.
“The other two guys did it perfectly – they left just enough space for one car, which is the rule, and then Pascal just completely swerved all up to the wall and I had to slam on the brakes halfway down the straight. He’d already committed to lifting and at that point you have to leave space and he didn’t. But we can’t protest against them because they also have a Porsche powertrain.”
The result moves Wehrlein to within two points of championship leader Nick Cassidy, while Dennis himself is now 14 points back in third place.
“Obviously the start lost me the race, ultimately,” he said. “We had way too much wheelspin on the dust and dropped back to fourth.
“You’re obviously having a good season if you’re annoyed with second.”
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Hazel Southwell (@hazelsouthwell)
3rd June 2023, 11:34
Much though I’m fond of Jake’s post-race rants I reckon this was very (literally) heat of the moment; Pascal’s defending was robust but they’re not team mates – and if they were, Jake’s move was over-aggressive. Bit of sweaty frustration after a physically brutal race (although the g forces aren’t an issue in Formula E, there’s no power steering and the cars are physically rough to handle, especially on a very short course like Jakarta where the corners are almost as relentless as London) that I suspect he was already regretting or more likely had forgotten by the time he was at the podium.