Under three months ago, Jake Hughes was as sure as he could be he would be one half of an all-British 2025-26 Formula E driver line-up at Cupra Kiro alongside his Formula 2 contemporary Dan Ticktum.
Behind the scenes a lot of the team were of the same opinion too, but crucially its owners weren't.
It got to the point where Hughes tested the Cupra Kiro-Porsche at Abingdon airfield a couple of weeks before the crucial Valencia pre-season test. He left that day as sure as he could be he would be in the car when the season began.
The rude awakening came days later when he was informed he wouldn't get the drive. Instead, Pepe Marti was soon announced.
Not for the first time in his career, Hughes had lost out via circumstances beyond his control, and not because he wasn't the favoured choice by the majority of the team.
But Hughes is a big boy and he didn't cry about it. Instead, he recalibrated with his manager Mark Blundell and just before Christmas concluded a new deal with Mahindra that was announced on Tuesday morning. Hughes is officially a reserve and simulator driver but will focus primarily on Gen4 testing, with fellow standby Kush Maini front of the queue for any stand-in race duties needed this season.
It's a promising arrangement for Hughes, a driver who The Race described last August - when it was clear he was out of the chaotic Maserati MSG team - as being the unluckiest driver in Formula E and one that the championship couldn't afford to let slip off the grid.
"I think it's obvious that I was looking and was hopeful of getting a race seat for season 12 and I was quite far down the line with one team," a typically discreet Hughes tells The Race.
"I was not necessarily expecting it, but was definitely hopeful of that race seat, which just didn't materialise.
"I've had to kind of readjust my plans and being a reserve driver and a development driver, especially in this pre-Gen4 year that we're going to have now in 2026, is the next-best thing."
Hughes describes his new role as "a really great opportunity for me. It's a team that looks like it's on the up and a team that looks like it has a really good atmosphere around the place, and I think they're doing some really good things".
Hughes hasn't been idle since his last laps in a Maserati - which, almost typically for last season, included being swiped out innocently from the London E-Prix last July, inadvertently by his own team-mate Stoffel Vandoorne.
He's been working with the McLaren Formula 1 team, where he got track time at Paul Ricard last November. He is said to have greatly impressed the engineers on that test team with his attitude and technical feedback, something which is consistent with his reputation forged in Formula E since he was a Venturi test driver back in 2021.
Hiring Hughes is a shrewd move by Frederic Bertrand and the Mahindra team, and it will have been at the very least backed up by its performance director, Jeremy Colancon. He knows Hughes from the Venturi days and knows talent when he sees it.
Mahindra is in an interesting situation regarding its two race drivers for the Gen4 period. Current pair Nyck de Vries and Edoardo Mortara have great experience; both have an abundance of E-Prix wins and in de Vries' case a title too. On the face of it there is no need to even consider a change but Formula E has a funny habit of such forecasts changing very quickly and for multiple reasons - often via circumstances beyond a driver's own control.
Should it play out favourably for Hughes, he is as plug-in-and-play as it comes in Formula E terms and with Gen4 testing under his belt he becomes a very attractive prospect.
Can Mahindra juggle its priorities?
The only slight issue is Mahindra's very late confirmation of its Gen4 programme, late to the outside world at least. It may well be that it is unable to test until the early summer, by which time it will be playing some serious catch-up with its rivals.
All of a sudden the ghost of the team's start to Gen3 begins to hover into view.
That was when Mahindra was again late with its project and despite the immense false dawn of Lucas di Grassi's shock pole position and podium at the first Gen3 race in Mexico City in January 2023, the team hit the doldrums hard. The situation was close to breaking Mahindra but it actually made it stronger and it is now in a position in the final Gen3 season of possibly challenging for a title.
But the good news is that the Gen4 project globally is in a much better position than its predecessor. Yes, Mahindra has a herculean task ahead of it this season to prepare for the new era and the key question will be if it actually damages its current campaign. It does not have the resources - human or technical - that a Porsche, a Jaguar, a Nissan or a Stellantis has. So the likelihood is that something will have to give.
Hughes's employment is a part of addressing that, clearly. His experience and expertise has been quickly snapped up and the only surprise is that another manufacturer didn't get there first. Jaguar went for Vandoorne, Nissan for Sam Bird, so it makes every kind of sense that a driver who previously matched up exceedingly well against both of those in the same teams (Maserati and McLaren) gets a similar deal.
"I'm well-versed in this development role now, in terms of simulator testing and reserve driving," says Hughes.
"I think I did a good job as a reserve driver for Mercedes back in the day, and since then I've now had three pretty strong seasons as a race driver.
"Obviously my goal is absolutely to be back on the grid for season 13 [2026-27]. I think getting the mileage, getting the testing, will only serve me well to further that possibility.
"The main priority, though, is to help Mahindra and to learn from them, to be a sponge and to develop the car ready for hopefully a very successful period in the near future for them."
