Oliver Rowland believes “more than one slip-up” cost the Nissan Formula E driver a likelihood to win the Sao Paulo E-Prix, who didn’t rating any points despite leading essentially the most laps.
In the primary race of the 2024–2025 season, the Briton began from second position, losing in qualifying to pole position and current champion Pascal Wehrlein by only 0.099 seconds.
After overtaking the Porsche driver from the grid, Rowland led the opening stages on town street circuit, briefly losing the highest spot when Nick Cassidy moved into the lead because of his latest all-wheel drive attack mode.
After each activations, the second when the red flag got here on for Jake Dennis' stranded and dangerous automotive, Rowland overtook Antonio Felix da Costa's second Porsche during a standing restart.
He gained a lead of over three seconds over the group before being assessed a pass-through penalty, which ultimately led to him ending 14th.
“Sometimes it's hard to accept it,” Rowland told Motorsport.com after leading 17 of 35 laps in Brazil. “We were in fine condition, effective, fast. I'm quite dissatisfied.
UK's Oliver Rowland and the Nissan Formula E Team are taking a media have a look at the situation
Photo: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images
“Honestly, there was more than one screw-up, let's say, and the reason I had three and a half seconds [prior to his penalty] it was because of another.”
Asked if this needed to do with the fallacious variety of laps being displayed, as was the case last season at Misano, which meant Rowland ran out of steam within the lead on the ultimate tour, he replied: “It's not the identical, but similar.
“If I had done the precise variety of laps from the start and had as much energy as everyone else, I’d have fought for the win.
“I cleared the passage, but we wasted lots of energy traveling. I dropped back to eighth and that showed how much we had gained, but the issue is that [second] the red flag neutralized every part again after which I had a low goal until the top.
“At the primary red flag I used to be top-of-the-line, I finished second and still had good energy. And then those 4 or five laps before the second red flag, that pissed me off.
Rowland's penalty was the results of a 'disablement' which also affected his Nissan team-mate Norman Nato, in addition to the 2 McLaren entries of Taylor Barnard and Sam Bird.
Taylor Barnard NEOM McLaren Formula E Team Nissan e-4ORCE 05 David Beckmann Kiro Race Co Porsche 99X Electric WCG3
Photo: Alastair Staley / Motorsport Images
Because the papaya-colored cars received early penalties, they saved enormous amounts of energy and were capable of climb back as much as third and fourth place because of the downtime.
“This [overpower] it’s there from the very starting,” Rowland said. “I didn't realize that the opposite three had managed to do it and I got the identical thing as them on the second start.
“It's principally due to speed. On my first start I used to be closer to Turn 1, so I didn't reach the speed where it was an issue.
“It's a front-to-back transition [powertrains, when all-wheel-drive is used]so on the second start, when I pushed harder into turn 1, I made it.”
In this text
Be the primary to know and subscribe to email updates with real-time news on these topics
Subscribe to news notifications
