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“I definitely celebrated with all my friends and family,” Dennis said when asked how he’d commemorated the World Championship that he won on home soil in London earlier this year.” One of the best things about Formula E is that you finish in the summer, so you can still get away to some nice countries and travel to the other side of the world for the good weather.
“I've had some time to myself as well. Moved out of London, so just been keeping myself busy, but definitely quite eager to get back going now. It does feel like a long time since London. I haven't really driven since then. Seeing the guys out there on track this morning looked fun.”
Dennis, who has opted to race with the #1 this season, had spent the morning watching rookie Zane Maloney take to the track as part of the mandatory rookie testing that was scheduled for the pre-season test.
With regulations limiting the amount of development that can be made to the cars for Season 10, Dennis knows that the TAG Heuer Porsche powertrain is still one of the best on the grid.
“We've still got an incredibly strong powertrain,” the Brit continued. “I don't think there's too much development that can happen coming into this season. There's always tweaks here and there, but it's more probably fine tuning.
“I would expect the likes of DS will definitely close the gap to us. It's also still going to be difficult to beat Jaguar TCS Racing and the other Porsche team. Just trying to do what we did last year is going to be extremely difficult with that many podiums and wins. It's never easy when the competition closes up.
“We just need to focus on this three day test and then analyse over the next couple of months, because it's very different this year. Last year we did Valencia and then went straight into Mexico. You couldn’t really do all that much. Whereas now, we have quite a bit of time after this test to reanalyse and continue to improve the systems before Mexico.”
With just over 70 days until the Mexico City E-Prix on 13 January 2024, there’s plenty of time to look over the data gathered from the test as well as simulations. Mexico City is a very familiar circuit for the all-electric championship, having first raced there in 2016. Last season Dennis won the event, and started a title campaign that would see him crowned champion in front of his home fans at the London finale doubleheader.
As well as the return of Mexico, Formula E is revisiting lots of other familiar favourites in addition to some new locations.
“I think Tokyo is definitely the standout race in the calendar,” Dennis added on the Japanese capital making its calendar debut this season. “I'll probably speak on behalf of everyone there. It’s great that we get into the race in such a prestigious country. Obviously the city of Tokyo is going to be very, very special.
“We've also got the classics. Going back to Monaco will be great, London, Shanghai will also be a cool doubleheader, [racing] some of the F1 circuit as well by the sounds of it. So, exciting times!”
Dennis finished the pre-season test 12th fastest, with a time of 1m24.848s.
