Less than two years ago, the Andretti Formula E team was in a state of major upheaval.
Just eight months prior a bombshell – in the shape of BMW’s surprise rejection of a commitment to Formula E that, in truth, had always felt a little flaky from a factory standpoint – had fallen upon it.
Less than two seasons into its full factory effort alongside Andretti and with four race wins to its name, BMW was out.
The reasons were flimsy and along with its anaemic World Endurance Championship programme with the M8 GTE car, its international motorsport programme was withering away.
The news was as much of a shock to Andretti as it was to the rest of the world but the team wasn’t left completely high and dry. A deal was announced to continue its BMW powertrain supply for the 2022 season and Andretti was still able to use its simulator and have access to other engineering resources.
While that was welcome, there was also a realisation that the team had to be remoulded. More importantly a large slice of its budget also had to be acquired.
These tasks were achieved in rapid fashion. By the start of the 2022 campaign, which was in the autumn of 2021 at the pre-season Valencia test, Avalanche Andretti was born and several new faces were integrated into the squad.
It all started like a dream with Jake Dennis taking a most unexpected podium in Riyadh. Then came a major slump for the majority of the following races. But more brilliance by Dennis at the final four races in London and Seoul, and occasional strong support from his team-mate Oliver Askew, brought enough points for Andretti to pip its 2023 manufacturer partner Porsche to sixth in the 2022 teams’ championship.
It was the springboard for what it has achieved in its current stellar season. The team started with a victory in Mexico that surprised even its senior management. Yet the surprises kept on coming as Dennis’s title quest solidified.
“We’ve always set ourselves pretty high expectations of what we could achieve,” team principal Roger Griffiths tells The Race.
“But certainly, where we were in Valencia, I don’t think any of us would ever have dreamt of this kind of turnaround.
“I’m not surprised that we’ve seen really good results based on the amount of work that’s been done, and the quality of people we have but I’m surprised it’s come quite as quickly as it has.
“It’s just having the right people and having the right work ethic and when things have gone wrong, we’ve not let it get to us. We’ve not done any kind of knee-jerk reaction, we’ve methodically just worked our way through why it went wrong, what we should have done differently, how we implement that going forward mindset.”
When Andretti secured its partnership with Porsche at the beginning of 2022 after several months of negotiations it seemed already to be a shrewd move.
Come June of 2022 when Porsche was the first to start putting serious miles on its Gen3 test and development car it looked even wiser.
Andretti was instantly integrated into the test programme. It participated in the vast majority of the tests with both drivers and engineers on site.
“We got a really good insight into the car early on, certainly the engineering team, they were embedded in the Porsche test team, if you like,” acknowledges Griffiths.
But that early positivity was quickly curtailed for Porsche, as it was for all the manufacturers, when a succession of fundamental issues hovered into view. One was reliability, with the batteries over-oscillating, before concerns over how cars would stop should a powertrain or battery snag manifest itself at high-speed brought significant safety questions to the table.
Porsche had a number of tests compromised and then in the first phase of the 2023 season the lack of RESS (rechargeable energy storage system) units made private testing impossible for a few months.
This was, as Griffiths alluded to, when the potential of the early success of the season and maximising what both Porsche and Andretti had was put in danger.
Then came a dip in results. Dennis got cleaned out by an overenthusiastic Rene Rast in Hyderabad and then came the team’s only real fundamental error in Cape Town a few weeks later.
“We got hit with a tyre pressure penalty at the start of the race, just through circumstances,” Griffiths recalls.
“From there, we had a drive-through penalty, and that was the end of Jake’s race, really.
“It was a case of just dealing with the aftermath of that, and doing a lot of analysis as to why it went wrong, where the limits really are, having a better understanding of this particular circumstance.”
This related to a mid-race safety car that caused the tyre pressures to drop which Griffiths describes as “unfortunate, but one that gave an example of where we recovered well, and actually came out of the mistake in a better position than we were going into it”.
By mid-season Dennis had got back on the consistency train and was banging in podium after podium. Although his Monaco race was relatively quiet it was perhaps his most significant result of the season.
For whatever reason Dennis had previously struggled in the principality. But with Porsche power that was overturned and he took a strong third, which would be the second of five podium visits between Berlin and Portland.
The mark of a champion is often digging out results even when mistakes are made. In Dennis’s case he did this superbly in Rome earlier this month when his team made a mess of the lap count. Dennis still took 12 points for fourth – 50% of the lead he currently enjoys over Nick Cassidy heading into London. And then, of course, he took a brilliant win in the second race.
Dennis’ mental aptitude on how to run, adapt strategies and see the bigger picture in Formula E races, first in Gen2 and now Gen3, is clearly exceptional. It has been honed just as much in his sim work for Andretti as it has in his sim driver role at the Red Bull Formula 1 team.
“What Jake has learned is Formula E is all about consistency,” says Griffiths.
“I did a fair amount of analysis of what it took to win a championship or place well in the championship, and when you needed to be scoring, in terms of average points per weekend, and things like that.
“It really highlights to some extent how [Stoffel] Vandoorne won his championship in 2022 when he only won one race. It’s all about a consistent approach to delivering every single weekend and that’s what we’ve really focused on: taking that mindset.”
Griffiths is dead right. In Formula E you don’t always have a race-winning car, so when you don’t then drivers don’t need to try to win at all costs.
“If you’ve got a third-place car, then that’s what you aspire to,” Griffiths adds. “So, this was kind of how we’ve adopted it. With the way that energy management has really come to the fore over the last 12 months since the introduction of the Gen3 car, it has played into our hands a little bit.
“Porsche has delivered us a really good powertrain, very strong on that energy management aspect. But I think also, with what we’ve developed in terms of our off-car analysis of how to do the race strategy, things like that has been a good step forward.”
Dennis has clearly been an integral part of how Andretti has developed that. His reward, come the end of the weekend, could well be the Formula E drivers’ title.
“He’s very engaged in the discussions ahead of the race as to what we should do under certain circumstances and things like that,” says Griffiths.
“He contributes a significant amount. Obviously, he’s not an engineer, but he understands how the race can unfold and what happens if you try to do an undercut, or an overcut using the attack mode with somebody behind.
“Also, what the possibilities of success for each of the scenarios are, so we sort of talk about it, even during the race, if you listen to some of the radio you can start to get a feel for his level of engagement, so it’s sort of been a contribution from those in the garage and Jake behind the wheel.”
Keyword: Andretti’s journey from BMW bombshell to Formula E title brink