Jake Dennis admitted scoring pole position for the Portland E-Prix hindered the Avalanche Andretti driver’s chance at victory as he narrowly missed out to Envision Racing’s Nick Cassidy.
Dennis won his first Final Duel in Portland over Sacha Fenestraz earlier in the day, handing him the front spot of the grid while also breaking the record for the fastest lap of the weekend with a time of 1:08.919s.
The Brit led early in the race but Cassidy took advantage of the slipstream he produced to take victory, leaving Dennis to tussle with Antonio Felix da Costa and finish second for the third consecutive time.
“Ultimately, getting the pole was great. But it was actually a hindrance for us, we led the first three or four laps, and we were down on energy,” said Dennis.
“I had to do a lot of risky saving in the middle part, which put me under some pressure. And then we just left ourselves too vulnerable at the end.”
“It was really difficult to overtake Antonio [Felix da Costa], and Nick [Cassidy].
“Lessons learned for sure.”
Dennis now has the honours of the most podiums in 2023, having five second-place finishes in Berlin, Monaco, both Jakarta races and now in Portland.
The Avalanche Andretti driver lost all three of his Final Duel appearances in 2023 admitting that the team worked to improve this over the season.
“We’ve improved our qualifying car over the past…two rounds, and that has really helped us achieve these results.”
“It’s been a long time, since Mexico, we’ve had all these podiums, we’ve just equalled the record of the amount of podiums now and had three seconds in a row.
“So I really want to get the win in Rome.”
He leads the championship on 154 points, one point ahead of Cassidy going into the final two Formula E race weekends, Rome and London.
The three extra points for pole ended up helping Dennis leave Portland ahead of his rivals.
“I wanted the win very badly. But Nick got the better of us today,” he added.
“It was such a difficult race in those first 15 laps, a lot of different strategies going on between cars. Came home, P2. 18 points. And yeah, still leading the championship.”
The Formula E double header in Rome will begin on July 15-16.
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