Despite showing excellent pace and race winning potential across the opening two rounds of the FIA F3 season, Jake left Spielberg with just half a point to his name owing to a run of extremely bad luck for the 26-year-old. In the opening weekend, a technical issue forced him into the pits on the formation lap of race one and nullified his fifth place qualifying efforts, leaving him in 28th place at the chequered flag in race one. A sterling recovery drive in the second race saw him climb from 28th to 12th.

Hoping to bounce back, his second weekend in the Styrian hills didn’t start any better. Another technical issue, this time in qualifying, left him 16th on the grid for race one. With abysmal weather conditions curtailing the opening race of the weekend, Jake climbed to tenth place and, as the race was suspended before half-distance, scored his first top ten finish of the season and half a point along with it, as well as reverse grid pole for race two.

In that second race, Jake held firm and battled for the lead for much of the race with Liam Lawson until a mistake from the New Zealander wiped both drivers out of the race at turn four, rounding off a luckless opening two rounds for Jake and his HWA RACELAB team.

The Hungaroring is a track Jake has fared well at previously, with two third-placed finishes at last year’s event. It's a notoriously tight and technical circuit with few straights and several complex corners to string together. Jake will be keen to repeat those previous successes this time around and move on from his Austrian misfortunes.

"I’m looking forward to heading off to Budapest. It’s a chance to wipe the slate clean and get my season started properly. Half a point from the first four races obviously isn’t ideal but I know the pace is there to succeed, I just need everything else to fall into place around it.

I’ve got fond memories of the Hungaroring from last year with two trips to the podium. You need a good rhythm to get the most out of it and that’s what I’ll be pushing for this weekend."