Formula E

Dennis confused by da Costa shunt – and ‘bizarre’ penalty logic

by Sam Smith
3 min read

Jake Dennis was left perplexed by the braking episode that wrecked his and fellow Porsche-powered driver Antonio Felix da Costa’s Saturday in Berlin.

The Avalanche Andretti driver has scored no points from the last four races and slipped from second to fifth in the standings after another disastrous no-score.

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Dennis was again in strong shape as the race entered its final 12 laps with a strong strategy having seen him bank energy in the early portion despite being baulked by big early energy-spending Maserati drivers Edoardo Mortara and Max Guenther.

But as Dennis attempted a manoeuvre down the inside of Guenther’s Maserati at Turn 6 he lost control of the Andretti Porsche and speared into da Costa.

After a look into the incident, The Race understands that no braking fault was found on the car that could be attributed to the incident.

As a consequence of Dennis pumping the brake pedal, the secondary brake implemented into the cars at Riyadh in January was deployed. This system should be able to be reset after a power cycle but this is understood to have not been possible for Dennis and he was forced to pit and lose further time.

Once it had been corrected Dennis re-entered the track and finished last and 18th position after also getting a five-second time penalty and a penalty point for the incident.

“The rear brakes came on in the end as I was spinning and we still have to see what caused the issue of not being able to stop and then obviously having the (secondary) brake issue for the next couple of laps,” said Dennis.

“We had to reset the car in the pits, do a full brake, reset, and then it worked.”

Innocent victim da Costa was left to rue the wasted possibility of challenging the Jaguar-powered cars at the end, saying that “from my side, I’m just going to a corner like I did every other time, there’s a car coming rearwards into my front axle. Bad timing.”

The Porsche driver reckoned that his race from a 19th position grid start to fourth place before the clash was “really good because we changed the car a little bit after a poor qualifying, trying to adjust to what we were struggling with and following the track evolution.

“I think we pretty much nailed that and the car was very strong, very fast. A lot of positives to take forward to tomorrow.”

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Dennis added that he understood why the penalty was applied but also said he did not agree with the rationale.

“I was like, put me back out (on track) because I want a penalty now,” he said.

“Not tomorrow, because they’re not going to look at the reason why obviously I crashed and took out Antonio.

“So, for them (the stewards), I just hit Antonio which is valid for them and I deserved the penalty. I mean, I don’t agree with the penalty system the way it is though.

“I said this prior to the event (to The Race on Thursday) obviously with Dan and me last time at Sao Paulo and now I’m on the right foot over this weekend. It’s bizarre that you can take someone out and I finished the race to go back out and get that penalty.”

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