Oliver Rowland, Nissan Formula E Team
Photo by: Joe Portlock / Motorsport Images
Oliver Rowland claimed victory in the Mexico City E-Prix, beating Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein and Antonio Felix da Costa after capitalising on a late safety car restart to snatch the win.
The Nissan driver was running only fourth on lap 28 of the scheduled 36 and several seconds behind race leader da Costa and Wehrlein, both of whom had been the pacesetters throughout having locked out the front row.
While the two Porsches and third-place Jake Dennis had taken both Attack Modes, offering 350kW and all-wheel-drive this season, Rowland activated his final six minutes just moments before the first of two late safety cars were deployed.
With just over a minute of extra power remaining at the restart on lap 31, Rowland immediately demoted Dennis for third coming out of the final corner before lunging up the inside of Wehrlein into Turn 5.
Having looked to the outside of da Costa into T9 before backing out, Rowland got the run out of the corner and dived to the inside into Turn 12 to take the lead just seconds before his extra power ran dry and another safety car was called into action for an incident behind.
With four laps remaining Rowland caught the chasing pack napping with a quick restart and despite having slightly less energy than da Costa behind, was able to hold on for his first win of the season.
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Source: Autosport