For the first time in his career, Jake Hughes has been able to shut down in the off-season and completely relax, free from the worries of finding a drive. His time was his own, and that meant he could play golf, cycle, watch Aston Villa and catch up with friends and family.

The time allowed him to completely reset before his return to full-time training, which he stepped up ahead of pre-season testing in Valencia.

As he returned to the track in Valencia, he felt fitter, calmer and more confident than ever. For the first time, he’d fully recharged and built up his fitness gradually whilst spending more time with the team at their Bicester base and in the next-gen simulator at the McLaren Technology Centre.

The 29-year-old has always made the most of the opportunities he’s been given – he’s had to – but this is the type of consistency and routine he’s been craving since he first began competitive karting in his late teens.

“Quite early on in the season, I was looking to get the contract resigned,” he says. “We managed to get it done quite early, which settled me down and gave me a nice off-season because I knew I would be coming back in my second season to build on what we did last year.

“I had a four or five-year period where I never really knew what I was doing in the following season until the last minute. I have been privileged to start racing and get the opportunities that I have had, but I never had the opportunity to fight for championships in the junior categories, and that puts you on the back foot a bit.

“I would spend the off-season working flat-out on the simulators, travelling, and doing everything possible to get a seat. Whereas, I finished my first season in Formula E, and I already knew what I was doing the following year, so I then had two months off. It was nice to mentally and physically reset.

“It’s the first time I’ve been in a comfortable place in my career where I’ve got time to see friends and family and haven’t had to smash training for two weeks before the season. I feel completely rested.”

Although Jake had joined our team as a rookie, he arrived with significant experience, having worked as a Reserve and Development Driver for the Mercedes-EQ team during their title-winning Formula E seasons. And he started the season strongly, scoring our first pole in the second round in Saudi Arabia. He then claimed another pole in Round 9 in Monaco but couldn’t convert either into a podium.

Performance over one lap wasn’t an issue for the team, but consistent race pace proved to be more of a challenge, while misfortunate cost the British racer on more than one occasion. 

Jake’s experience with Mercedes-EQ, combined with the team’s early pole position and René Rast’s Round 3 podium, had set high standards, but it was always going to be tricky to maintain this over a full season, given it was the team and Jake’s first year in the all-electric series.

“All I wanted for a long time was to race for this team,” Jake says. “So, I wanted to make a success of that first season, which I would say on the whole we did. We didn't win, but in the grand scheme of things, considering how much change we had last year, I would say it was a successful season.

“I was quite happy with it from a personal standpoint. The two poles were a highlight, and I learned a lot about Formula E. There's nothing like it, there's no junior category that prepares you for it. It’s a sink-or-swim championship – you get thrown into it, and you see if you can survive. There is a lot to learn, and you’re doing it in the heat of battle against guys who have been racing here for eight or nine seasons.

“You are learning how to manage a Formula E race, how to build from the start, and when to save energy. I’d done so many operations and so many runs on the simulator before my first season that I felt like I almost knew Formula E. But what you can’t legislate for is what the 21 other drivers think the race should look like and how that affects your strategy.

“It was a whole new experience. You have to go with things and adjust on the fly. It’s like a game of chess. I have a lot of that under my belt now, and I know the tracks, so I’m looking forward to building on it.”

Since the conclusion of our debut season in July, the team have been working hard at their base on Bicester, collating their lessons learned, working through the data, and getting stuck into the car to assess where we can approve ahead of the new season.

The physical car and the powertrain hardware won’t change, but the team can make improvements to the software, which they’ve been working to develop.

Heading into his second season, Jake’s been using what he learned in his rookie year to play his part in this, as well as working to improve himself, and he arrived at the official pre-season test in Valencia ready to hit the ground running.

“We've done a lot of analysis, it feels like it's been a long off-season already,” Jake says. “The pre-season test was halfway between the Season 9 finale in London and the Season 10 opener in Mexico, so we’ve had a lot of time, and I think we are in a good position.

“We’re a customer team, which means we have limitations on what we can improve, so we’ve been focusing on what we can control. When we looked back at last year, there were three or four key areas where we felt like we could have done better, which is what we are working to implement.”

Our Season 9 driver, René Rast, was pivotal in getting Jake up to speed with Formula E. The pair got on exceptionally well and were happy sharing knowledge. However, at the end of the 2022/23 season, the German driver opted to depart Formula E to pursue opportunities in other racing series.

Experienced FE race winner Sam Bird was drafted in as his replacement, and although Jake was disappointed to see his friend depart the team, he says he’s been delighted with what the former Jaguar driver has brought to the team.

“René and I got on like a house on fire last year, and I learned a lot from him, but Sam very much fits that mould,” Jake says. “He's been in Formula E for all nine seasons and won a race in most of those seasons. He knows Formula E inside and out and has raced for some top teams, so what he doesn’t know about Formula E probably isn't worth knowing.

“Even though I am not a rookie anymore, I will just be a sponge. We get on well, and we’re both British. We’ve already spent a lot of time on the simulator, and I look forward to getting into a competitive environment at the race track, where we can bounce off each other and push the team forward.”

Season 10 of Formula E sparks into action on 13 January 2024 in Mexico City.