By Alan Baldwin
LONDON (Reuters) – Jake Hughes had a surreal moment when he saw his electric Formula E car parked next to Formula One great Alain Prost’s 1980s racer at McLaren’s Woking headquarters, but the weight of history serves only as motivation.
McLaren Racing have taken over the team of departed champions Mercedes and will debut in the electric series in January when season nine — the new ‘Gen3’ era — gets under way in Mexico City.
Hughes, 28, hopes to add his name to the marque’s storied success.
“I see it as an overwhelming privilege. One of my favourite cliches is ‘pressure is a privilege’. I wouldn’t want anything else,” the Briton told Reuters during testing at Spain’s Valencia circuit.
“I just want to go out and win trophies for the team and McLaren, I want to write my own part of history into this team and put my own trophies in that trophy cabinet. It’s what I’m striving for.”
Hughes partners 36-year-old German Rene Rast as the first NEOM McLaren Electric Racing drivers.
The Saudi-backed outfit, based at Bicester in central England, will use Nissan powertrains but maintain close ties to Woking.
Unlike Rast, a triple German Touring Car (DTM) champion and ex-Audi Formula E racer, Hughes has taken something of a back-door route to what could be a front-running seat.
He started karting only at 16 and comes from a family with no previous involvement in motorsport, where funding is always an obstacle.
While many top drivers started karting at four or five, watching ‘Top Gear’ on television was about the closest Hughes got until his teens.
“Everyone on my mum’s side and my dad’s side plays football. So me and my brother we played football from the age of four,” he said.
“That was what I was introduced to when I was young. It’s definitely still a passion of mine, and what I enjoyed playing, so I never opened up my world to racing.”
A chance trip to an ‘arrive and drive’ go-kart track in Birmingham, along with the realisation that he was not going to make it on the soccer field, changed everything.
British Formula Four champion in 2013, he competed in Formula Three and sporadically in Formula Two and was reserve for Mercedes in Formula E.
“Guys like me quite easily go underneath the radar because we’re not in the position to have the machinery beneath us year on year to go out and win the championship and make a name for ourselves,” said Hughes.
“I recognised I had to go through the simulator and reserve role, show what I can do in the background. I knew my peak results were not going to be enough to get me into Formula E.
“I felt going in through the back door effectively was the way I had to do it, which is how it’s panned out. And now I’m here. The hardest part was always getting here.”
The Briton won a test race in Valencia and feels ready after observing champions Nyck de Vries and Stoffel Vandoorne at Mercedes.
“I’ve sort of been a sponge in the background trying to take in as much as I can,” he said.
“Stepping into the race seat has felt quite seamless so far. I know the team, we wear the McLaren colours now but I know all the faces from before… I don’t feel like I could be more prepared as a rookie for Formula E.
“I’m very confident in my own ability, I know that if I do the job I can do… that will be good enough.”
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin, editing by Christian Radnedge)
