Whiplash of Misano wins and losses adds up for Rowland

Oliver Rowland feels the unusual 24-hour period in Misano in which he inherited one Formula E win after a post-race ruling, then lost another on the final lap, generated positive momentum overall for his Nissan team, despite the emotional roller coaster.

Rowland was awarded the victory in the first part of the Misano E-Prix after Antonio Felix da Costa was found to have an illegal throttle damper spring in his Porsche, but lost out in Sunday’s race after running out of usable energy five corners into the final lap.

“It’s never the way you want to win, right? You want to stand on top of the podium, and in some aspects, I don’t class it as a pure win because I didn’t stand on top of the podium,” Rowland admitted. “I think what the judgment was for after the race wasn’t performance enhancing, so I didn’t deserve to win that race, let’s say, because somebody beat me.

“What I will take is the points and the rest of the stuff that comes with it, and also the confidence for the team. We’ve put one on the board, now so it kind of relieves a little bit of pressure on that side moving forward.”

Rowland revealed that he had already left the track by the time the ruling was delivered, and was making his way to another hotel after a rough night before the first race day. Nevertheless, it wasn’t an unexpected call, with he and his team having a feeling something was coming after da Costa’s Porsche remained in scrutineering for a longer time than normal

“I actually had a lot of noise in my hotel on Friday night, and I think I slept an hour and a half,” he said. “So I was swapping hotels and walking between the two of them when I had a call from the team and they sort of informed me that we’d won the race.