Rowland admits 'it would have been difficult to win' in Mexico without security

Olivier Rowland believes that “it would have been difficult for him to win” the Mexico E-Prix without the race-changing safety car in the final section, after which he managed to overtake three cars in one lap to take the lead.

The pilot of Nissan Last Saturday he won his first victory of the season in the Formula E and the first at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodríguez, despite the fact that He only led the last six laps of an event dominated by Porsche drivers, Antonio Felix da Costa And Pascal Wehrlein.

The Briton was only fourth, and found himself a few seconds behind Da Costa and Wehrlein, when activated his last six minutes of “attack mode”, moments before the safety car came out by the Cupra Kiro arrested David Beckman.

The speed with which the green flag was shown again meant that Rowland still had just over a minute available in attack mode on the restart, with six laps remaining, and as those in front already had used, I got rid of Jake DennisWehrlein and da Costa in turn won an unexpected victory.

“I think when it came to the safety car there was some luck involved, but I also lost almost six minutes in Attack mode.“, Rowland said. “But I honestly think it would have been difficult for me to win without the safety car, because I was struggling a little bit to be efficient after about 10 laps. We were racing to put the pieces together, hopefully“.

When asked what would have been possible if the first of two safety cars had not taken place, Rowland admitted that a podium was probably the ultimate reward: “I think it's hard to say. I don't have the exact figures on energy“, he added.

“I would have gone back to them [los tres primeros, en el sentido de alcanzarles]but I think if I had anticipated them [con el modo ataque]would have consumed too much and would have fought to keep the lead, that's my intuition. I think my strategy, at the time, probably would have been to reach them and then consolidate a podium, but when I had the opportunity to chase them, I did it.“.

Porsche took the front row of the grid for the first time in its Formula E history in Mexico, as reigning champion Wehrlein led Da Costa from the opening laps. The two men led 26 of the 36 laps, with the Portuguese ahead of the German on the edge of lap 28, a key safety car moment. On the restart, da Costa defended against Rowland in the turn 9/10 chicane and continued to cover the inside at turn 12, but could not prevent the Briton from overtaking him on all-wheel drive.

Antonio Felix da Costa

“Oliver was very decisive. I defended well and I think there wasn't much space left, and it's always good to compete with him when it's something hard and just like that.“, commented da Costa, who leads the championship in the general classification for the first time since the campaign in which he won the title, 2019-20.

“I thought we did a double today for the team, and then that safety car came, I still have to go back and think about it. Maybe Oliver would have had enough to go back to the front, or not, I guess we'll never know, but he kind of ruined our party.“, he concluded.