Ahead of the Berlin E-Prix, Fastest Formula News talked to Jake Hughes about his experience at Maserati. As well as his expectations for the Berlin E-Prix.
Hughes learned how to drive in an “energy-saving” way at Maserati
Hughes admitted to FFN that “one of the biggest things” he learnt from Maserati and his teammate, is how to drive in an “energy-saving format.” The Brit added that they helped him in to figure out how to drive the car in the right way. Giving him an idea of how “energy-saving driving style looks like.”
Moving to Maserati this year, Hughes revealed to FFN, that it “opened his eyes a little bit.” In terms of learning how to drive in a more energy-saving way. Though he should have known that already as a Formula E driver. Hughes is happy to have learnt it, during his time at Maserati.
“Personally, I was actually saying this to my teammates not that long ago. I think one of the biggest things I’ve learnt this year from the team that taught me is actually, it sounds trivial, but how to drive properly in an energy-saving format. I know that sounds obvious, like it’s Formula E, we save energy, you should know how to do that already.”
“There’s a thousand ways to drive in these races. I’ve only ever been with one team before this, even two different guys, but the messaging was always the same. My eyes opened a little bit, moving to this team in terms of what they think an energy-saving driving style looks like.”
“I was saying to staff that I think actually, aside from all the things that could have been better this year, one obvious glaring thing that I think I’ve really improved on is my way to energy-save driving the race, and that’s come from this team.”
“That’s the million-dollar question” – Hughes on consistent performances ahead of the Berlin E-Prix
Hughes finished on the podium in Jeddah and drove up to P4 in Shanghai. “That’s the million-dollar question” Hughes answered, when FFN asked about how he plans to keep having consistent results. While he had three top 5 finishes in this year, Hughes still lingers in P15. Taking it with the right amount of humour though, as he told FFN: “If there was such an award for that, I’d probably have the most top fives for someone where I am in the championship.”
“Yeah, I mean, that’s the million-dollar question at the moment. It’s weird, I’ve had three top fives this year, which for someone wherever I am in the championship, if there was such an award for that, I’d probably have the most top fives for someone where I am in the championship. But that just goes to show the style of year we’ve had.”
Mixed results through Qualifying performance and issues with the car
Explaining further that these mixed results show how the season went for him and the team. As at some races they lacked pace, while at others they could fight at the top. Hughes blamed the Qualifying performance as one of the key factors to their position. Due to them lacking pace and being unable to find a consistent Qualifying performance.
“We’ve had these three or four good races, and then we’ve had the other seven or eight ones that, two or three of them, we probably weren’t quick enough. And then the other four or five, we were quick enough and somehow managed to, either from a driving side or from things like we had a mechanical issue in Jakarta.”
“We had two pit stop issues as well, which one was more on the equipment side, one was done more on the team side, let’s say, which can happen when something’s so new. So there’s been many explainable reasons, but I think the main thing that we know deep down we should be doing better is our qualifying performance more consistently.”
“We’re quite quick in practise very often, on the lower power mode and the four-wheel-drive power mode. And this new tyre is very tricky to understand. And up and down the pit lane, I think everyone will say their own version of that, that they are finding that difficult. But I think for us, we’ve found that a bit more difficult, it’s fair to say, and that’s the thing we need to fix.”
Track at the Berlin E-Prix brings challenges for Hughes and Maserati
Talking about the difficulties on the track with the concrete and tyre degradation, Hughes admitted, “it’s its own beast.” As the tyres tend to warm up differently on each side, and the grip needs to be found. With “not a lot of lateral”, breaking becomes the thing, that the drivers have to do more often during this weekend.
“Well, not to sound too much like an engineer, but what we call the macro and micro roughness is completely alien to any other track we drive on all year. So it’s its own beast, so to speak.”
“I think 19, 20s or 30s concrete is only going to provide a certain amount of grip. So we have to take that into consideration. It’s quite an asymmetrical track in terms of tyre warm-up. It’s very easy to warm the right-hand side tyres, very difficult to warm the left-hand side tyres”
Maserati gives new hope in Berlin for Hughes ahead of the E-Prix
Though having spent 2 years racing in Berlin with another team, Hughes is excited to get behind the wheel for Maserati this E-Prix. Seeing as Maserati finished the race with both cars in the Top 6 last year. While the Berlin E-Prix, “was probably the weakest track” for Hughes’ previous team.
“There’s not a lot of lateral, there’s a lot of braking. But the tyre likes to be used in both ways. And when you don’t have that available to you in lateral like Jakarta does or Shanghai does, you have to think a bit more outside the box.”
“But I think, you know, I spent two years now racing in Berlin on my previous team, and it was probably the weakest track for that team in terms of just outright pace. I’m a bit more looking forward to it this weekend because I saw the cars were all in the top six on the grid last year in Stellantis, something like that. So I’m kind of hopeful that it’s going to suit me more there.”
Hughes hoping for a “risk-free race” at the Berlin E-Prix
Having had the issue with not staying consistent, Hughes admitted that being consistent from Practice to Qualifying plays a key role. As he wished for a “risk-free race”, though admitting to FFN that this is rarely the case for the all electric racing series. Hughes added that the team and him are trying to figure out how to stay consistent during the weekend. In his eyes, they are “getting there slowly.”
Putting the fault on him for the Qualifying in Jakarta, Hughes hopes for a podium during the Berlin E-Prix. With another big goal ahead. Getting more points than in his last two seasons. He got 39 points in the championship right now, wanting to get more than 48 at the end of the season.
“To be consistent, like I said, from practise to quali. That’s the thing we spend a lot of energy on at the moment, even back at base on the simulator, trying to understand that. So we’re getting there slowly.”
“So hopefully this weekend we can see that. To be fair, in the last weekend in Jakarta, it was completely on me why we didn’t qualify well. I should have been in the jaws and I messed up the last corner.”
“OK, it can happen, but that was on me. So hopefully the things we took into Jakarta and therefore the things we’ve also been discussing since Jakarta can help us this weekend. But yeah, I think just looking forward to hopefully having a risk-free race, which is never the case in Formula E and hopefully finishing on the podium, that’ll be nice.”
