Zach Brown praises Jake Hughes for confident debut

Last Saturday, the McLaren team held its debut race in Formula E and this achievement can be regarded as quite successful. McLaren Racing CEO Zach Brown did not skimp on the praise of his debutant Jake Hughes after finishing the Mexican leg of the electric series.

When McLaren confirmed the contract with the 28-year-old Briton, whose entire Formula E experience was limited to participation in tests and cooperation with Venturi and Mercedes as reserve driver, the correctness of such a choice could be doubted. But Jake had a great first weekend of action, finishing third in qualifying and fifth in the race, earning 10 points for the team.

Perhaps he had no experience with the new Formula E car, because this year the World Electric Car Championship has moved to a new generation of vehicles and it has become much more difficult. It may also be that he should have acted more tactically with the team, because Jake was third for a long time and probably dreamed of a podium. In Mexico this dream remained unfulfilled, but the beginning was made and Hughes showed his fighting spirit.

“It’s great that McLaren is now in Formula E and the championship is finally starting,” said Brown after the first race of the season. – Jake showed himself well in his debut appearance, starting from 3rd position and finishing 5th. But we are only at the beginning of the journey and I want to quickly see what results the team will be capable of in 2023 and beyond.

Now the McLaren brand is represented in another racing series, which shows that we are serious about everything we do.”

Hughes’ partner, much more experienced racer Rene Rast, didn’t have the best first stage of the season: he was only 15th in qualifying and didn’t finish in the race, as he tried to break into the front but damaged the car after a hard contact with someone from rivals and stopped.

And yet Zach Brown summed up the results of the debut weekend in Formula E: “The team did a good job!”