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FIA F3

Dennis: "It's time for me to move on from single-seaters"

GP3 frontrunner Jake Dennis says it's highly unlikely he will be back in any form of single-seater racing next year, as he turns his attentions towards forging a career in sportscar racing.

Jamie Klein

Edited: Dec 12, 2016, 4:02 PM

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Jake Dennis, Arden International

Race winner Nyck De Vries, ART Grand Prix 2nd place Jake Dennis, Arden International and 3rd place Jack Aitken, Arden International World

#38 G-Drive Racing BR01 - Nissan: Simon Dolan, Giedo Van der Garde, Jake Dennis

Jake Dennis, Arden International

#38 G-Drive Racing BR01 - Nissan: Simon Dolan, Giedo Van der Garde, Jake Dennis

Jake Dennis, Arden International

Charles Leclerc, ART Grand Prix leads Antonio Fuoco, Trident & Nyck De Vries, ART Grand Prix

Jake Dennis, Arden International

2nd place Jake Dennis, Arden International

Dennis, 21, placed fourth in this year's GP3 standings with Arden International, taking wins at Monza and Sepang and scoring more points than anyone else in the final four meetings of the year.

The Racing Steps Foundation-backed driver also made his first foray into endurance racing by taking part in two FIA WEC rounds at Spa and Le Mans, where he shared a G-Drive Racing Gibson with team owner Simon Dolan and Giedo van der Garde.

This opportunity came as part of a tie-up between Arden and JOTA Sport, which ran the G-Drive cars in both WEC and ELMS this year.

Dennis did not take part in post-season testing for either GP2 or GP3, and confirmed he is now looking to move into sportscars full-time in 2017.

"It doesn’t look like we’ll be doing any sort of single-seaters next year," Dennis told Motorsport.com. "From my point of view it’s time to look at becoming a professional driver.

"Me and RSF took the step to do something different this year with doing Le Mans and Spa, which was a bit of an eye-opener. So we’re looking at GT3 or LMP2 for next year."

Asked if there had been further contact with JOTA Sport since his WEC outings, he said: "There’s negotiations going on for sure. We’ve been in touch throughout the year.

"I would love to drive for them next year, but we’ve got to wait and see in terms of that. LMP2 is a massive upgrade as well, which will generate interest from a lot of teams, which hopefully can offer more seats.

"Hopefully in January we should be close to sorting a deal."

Arden proved ART not unbeatable

Along with teammate Jack Aitken, Dennis was part of a late-2016 Arden resurgence that saw the Banbury-based squad take the fight to the benchmark team in GP3, ART Grand Prix.

Dennis reckons he and Aitken - who is expected to join ART for his second GP3 season in 2017 - proved that the French squad isn't unbeatable, at least at tracks where tyre wear played a larger role.

"It was clear [ART] were dominant in qualifying," said Dennis. "I got close a few times, got on the front row at a few tracks, but ultimately they had the best car in qualifying.

"We definitely had the better race car, but it was so difficult to pass when the tyre degradation is zero. We had to rely on the tracks where there was higher degradation.

"They definitely had the strongest line-up, they had four drivers capable of winning, whereas Arden just had me and Jack. They had double the data we had, and with very limited testing they used that to their advantage.

"But we took the fight to them and we were definitely their main rivals towards the end of the year, and to finish second in the teams’ [standings] was great."

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