Oliver Rowland told Motorsport Week that he sensed that the three-way fight for the FIA Formula E World Championship would escalate in-front of him during the final round in London.
The Nissan man started ninth on the grid at the ExCel Centre, but managed to capitalise on a slowing tempo of the race to work his way into contention. With title-chasing Nick Cassidy taken out, Mitch Evans missing Attack Mode twice, and Pascal Wehrlein aware that he did not need to fight for victory to ensure his World Champion status, Rowland was able to jump over the obstacles in-front of him and cruise to a win on home soil.
Asked if he envisaged such an eventuality playing-out, Rowland told Motorsport Week he could foresee chaos.
“Well, the way I saw it was I was kind-of second behind Nick, because those two [Evans and Wehrlein] had to take both Attack Modes which is quite a big penalty,” he said.
“But the problem was they were slowing the race down so much that it was becoming quite dangerous, and you saw Nick got caught by Antonio, not intentionally, but it was pretty sketchy so I was trying to keep a gap.
“I knew that when it was going to come to it, something was going to happen, not from the three but from an external source, which I was trying for it not to be. But it was going to blow up at some point either way. It must have been amazing to follow and understand!”
Rowland played-down his own title credentials all season long, seeing himself very much as an outsider given that the Nissan team had no expectations to challenge as well as they eventually did. Given that he ends Season 10 with two victories and fourth place in the championship – despite missing both Portland races due to illness – Rowland is now confident of his team working towards a fiercer challenge in Season 11, particularly given the final-race win will, as he sees it, boost morale within the Japanese squad.
“It puts the icing on the cake and the most important thing is that it motivates everyone for the off-season.
“If you come away from a weekend with no points and everybody is down, you’ve got no energy, but seeing everybody’s faces, they will go back to the workshop hungry to do more.”
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