NEOM McLaren’s Jake Hughes has told Motorsport Week that he hopes to have shown his team and the FIA Formula E community as a whole that signing him was the right call.
The Englishman is ending his second full season in Formula E, and from a personal perspective, Hughes can be rightly pleased with his performances this year. Having captured two pole positions in Misano and Shanghai, which was followed in the same race by his first FE podium with second place, speculation has begun to swirl about his whereabouts next season, with a promotion to the works Nissan team, as well as talks with Maserati and Lola/ABT all speculated.
Hughes’ rising stock is made all the more unique by his perhaps unconventional career path, having not started karting until he was 16, a good near-decade behind his contemporaries. With one able to make a loose comparison with his career to that of Damon Hill – who did not start car racing until his early 20s – Hughes, now 30, is happy to have proved some of the doubters wrong.
“Yes, I am very happy,” he said. “I think when I got the seat here at NEON McLaren last year in Season 9, I think it’s fair to say there was quite a vibe down the pit lane that maybe it was a bad decision, or maybe not necessarily a bad decision, but that it was a bit of a curveball, let’s say, to put their faith in me, and I was desperate to repay that faith.
“I would like to think I have done. The one-lap pace has always been there, and the race pace has definitely massively improved this year. If my stock’s higher, then that means I’ve been doing something good in the car. I wouldn’t begrudge that.”
Summing-up this year’s FE campaign, Hughes rightly acknowledges that the sport in general can be pleased, given that any one of seven drivers can be Drivers’ Champion by Sunday, proving its high rate of competitiveness. And from a team perspective, Hughes says McLaren have every right to be happy with their own 2024.
“I think as a whole I think it’s been very good for the Championship.
“I think the fact that you have seven guys still able to win the Championship, two teams still fighting for the Teams’ Championship, so from that point of view it’s been very successful.
“For my side and our side as a team, I think it’s been very, very promising. Definitely a huge step forward compared to last year. We don’t have the points on the board that we wanted to get, a lot of it’s been out of our control, but like I keep saying to everyone, even externally and internally, that our performance has been very good this year, and for a bit more luck with some pieces of carbon fibre, we could be sat on some very different results and quite a lot higher in the Championship.
“So whilst it’s frustrating because of points being prizes, I think it’s also worth acknowledging that in a different season, on a different day, we could have been sat in a very good position right now.”
Hughes’ point about luck is a fair one, as the McLaren package – propped-up by the unpredictably-good Nissan powertrain – has shown considerable strength over the course of the season, but, as he points out, Formula E can throw-up anything at any given moment, to the benefit or detriment of a driver and his team, especially as, compared to other motorsports, it could be considered a ‘contact sport’.
“That’s the key message we all as a team are trying to keep putting forward in that sense. The element of modern Formula E, of these sort of pack races, if you will, where we get a lot of contact, it’s almost unavoidable.
“It’s almost a guarantee that you will get contact multiple times in the race. There’s been a period of races in the season where I had to do a pit stop to change my front wing for three races in a row, and all of which were, I would suggest, out of my control.
“There’s been other instances where you see guys with broken front wings that are still able to continue the race. In fact, you see probably four, five, six cars in every single race able to do so.
“We’ve been on a stretch this season where we found ourselves in contact with damage and actually ended up pretty much ruining our race. Now, it is what it is. You would never say that that’s necessarily all bad luck or anything like that, but when you see other guys maybe getting a bit more of fortune in that sense with the same pieces of damage, it can be a little bit frustrating.
“When we look at Portland as well, I got taken out of both races with other drivers getting the penalties for when we qualified in the top five both times. Honestly, I could really have foreseen a different multiverse, let’s say, where we could be sat on double the points I am right now for the same level of driving and performance from outside as a team.”
F”I always say, when we talk about this, that I always put a lot of faith in the management of Formula E and the discussions they have together with the teams, and the fanbase as well, of what we think is the best way forward for all the stakeholders, really, I guess.
“I think pigeonholing the championship as, let’s say, only street track or only permanent racing track-type venues is probably incorrect. I think the more optimal way is a mixture of both.
“I would suggest the cars are getting faster with every single evolution through GEN1, GEN2, 3 and even GEN3 Evo next year. The cars are getting faster, more efficient, and racing circuits that the GEN1 car raced on probably wouldn’t be suitable for the GEN3 car, and as we move forward, some of the circuits we might race on now might not be suitable for the GEN4 car, GEN3 Evo, whatever, so the championship will always be planning ahead for that.
“Of course, the history of Formula E from the get-go is a lot of street circuits, so as best as we can, I think it would be good to keep a core of that still in the calendar, but we have to make sure we’re moving with the times as well.”
With the final weekend of the season now upon us, Hughes, in potentially his last race for McLaren, is hopeful of ending the season on a high, and with the ExCel Centre circuit more of a traditional Formula E style, Hughes acknowledges that his and his car’s one-lap pace will be crucial.
“Qualifying for sure will have a bit more weight to it than it would do, let’s say, at Portland, where you could start from the back and still have a chance to win the race! You won’t see that here.
“You will still see typical Formula E, you’ll still see plenty of overtaking, but you won’t see someone going from 22nd to the lead in two or three laps, so qualifying will be a big thing. That’s usually been a strength of ours.
“Last year, we were a bit hit-and-miss here. René [Rast, team-mate in Season 9] did a really good job and managed to get the car working.I really struggled to get the tyre in the window in qualifying last year, so we have learned those lessons, and I’d like to think if we went into qualifying now, we’d be in a very strong position to execute a good session. If we execute a good session, start at the front and hopefully we will be able to challenge for podiums.”
