ROWLAND MARCH HALTED BY ENERGY CRISIS
OLIVER ROWLAND lost what looked like being a comfortable victory when his car ran out of energy on the final lap in Italy.
The Barnsley racer was looking to cap off a spectacular weekend in Misano with a second race win.
But, just when he thought he was cruising to the chequered flag with a sizeable lead over Pascal Wehrlein, his car packed in.
Formula E cars start the race with only 70 per cent of the energy that is needed to finish the race, with the other 30 per cent regenerated through strategic driving.
With yesterday’s race two laps shorter than Saturday’s event, Rowland’s Nissan team appeared to misjudge their strategy, with the car hitting zero per cent as he began his run to the finish.
Former F1 star Wehrlein (inset) gladly accepted the gift which resulted in himself and secondplace finisher Jake Dennis leapfrogging Rowland at the top of the championship standings.
Nissan team principal Tommaso
Volpe said: “All of the data, the energy, the battery, the temperature [all made sense]. “So there must be something wrong in the data that we were working with.
“It was really, really strange.
“It is on the data, the control system. The data had some wrong information, like the number of laps or something like this. “Everything looked under control and Oliver did not report any mechanical issues. He did everything perfectly. The whole race he managed perfectly.
“It could’ve been a second win in a row but this is motorsport.”
Race winner Wehrlein said: “The pace he did seemed a bit weird and a bit too fast to try and defend. I was a bit surprised about his energy.
“I wasn’t sure if the team had the correct information or not, but in the end what we did proved to be the right thing to do.”
On being top again, Wehrlein said: “It goes quickly from hero to zero, or the other way round.
“You know it is like that in Formula E.”