Formula E Diriyah Winners' Circle: Catching up with Jake Dennis and Nick Cassidy
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Formula E’s only night race took place last weekend in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia. With a backdrop of the desert and a beloved track by the drivers, the double-header saw some expected placements and unexpected ones as well.
We spoke with double header winners, Jake Dennis (Andretti), the Season 9 Champion and Nick Cassidy (Jaguar), the Season 9 runner-up, to get their take on driving in Saudi, the large gap between the next race in Brazil and how they prepare for the different tracks. Cassidy has had an amazing start to Season 10 landing on all three podiums – Mexico City earlier this month in third, and now Diriyah with first and second place finishes.
HOW DID YOU FEEL COMPETITING IN THE DIRIYAH CIRCUIT THIS YEAR?
Dennis: Coming to Diriyah is always exciting. It’s the only night race we have of the year and the circuit itself is generally the driver’s favourite. It’s super-fast flowing and difficult to get right, but super rewarding when you do. It’s always exciting to come to Diriyah [Saudi Arabia] and put on a good show. It’s a really cool race build up, with the drones, lights. It’s always fun coming to Saudi and all the drivers enjoy it.
Cassidy: I had a great weekend, so it was amazing. The event is always really nice in Saudi. It’s the drivers favourite in terms of racetrack which is always really nice to drive and challenge ourselves on. It hasn’t always been a great weekend for me in the past, so it was nice to turn that around this year.
HOW DO YOU FIND THE COMPETITION LEVELS IN SAUDI?
Dennis: The competition is always extremely high. No worries about that. We got beat fair and square on Saturday and didn’t have any performance in comparison to Jaguar and Nissen. You can never take anything for granted. We won the race on Friday by 13 seconds and completely destroyed the opposition. Then we get to Saturday and finish P12 so it’s just a reality check. It’s Formula E; it’s just what happens. It shows that you always have to bring your “A Game”. If you’re slightly off the mark, which we were on Saturday, it’s super punishing and you go home with no points.
HOW DO YOU PREPARE FOR A THE DIFFERENT STYLE OF RACE IN BRAZIL AND WITH SUCH A BIG GAP [49 DAYS]?
Jake Dennis: You adapt your race approach significantly. You still want to qualify in the front but not in the front or second row. But if you’re in the top three rows, then you are out of the danger zone at the start and you can manage to save a lot but then ultimately, at some point you need to take the risk and lead the race and trying to do that at the perfect time is very challenging. It’s something we did quite well last year, Nick did it the best. But ultimately, it’s a completely different approach than how you approach Saudi where you want to lead the race at the right time. Whereas for Brazil, Portland saving as much energy as possible for 95% of the race and then taking the race lead in the last 5% and going for the win. Simulator preparation is key in that and getting the numbers from the energy management guys inside of Andretti will be important as well.
Nick Cassidy: It’s a good question. It’s a bit strange [the gap]. For us we are talking about weaknesses and things we want to improve. I think that a lot of teams are focusing on the GEN3.5, the car for next season. Balancing championship attack this season and a competitive package next season is not easy but it’s probably one of the periods where we focus on both those things.
NICK, DO YOU THINK YOU WILL BE STRONG IN EVERY AREA THIS SEASON AND THAT BEING TEAMMATES WITH MITCH [EVANS] WILL HELP YOU PUSH EACH OTHER THIS SEASON?
There are so many strong teams this year in Formula E. It’s incredible. I think you can see that with the qualifying in Saudi – four of the same cars with extremely quick. Porshe dominated on Day 1, we had a good run on Day 2 but everyone kind of had their moment. We are definitely going to have some tough weekends. There are definitely some types of corners that we are not as strong in as our competition so we’re going to have to keep working. I think when it comes to pushing on with Mitch, he’s super-fast so it’s going to be great working together with him but it doesn’t change to much from last year where we were doing the same last year within the Jaguar powertrain cars.
Round 4 of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship in San Paulo, Brazil airs Sat, Mar 16 at 12pm ET on TSN2 and TSN+