'I was pretty content even to be in the top five' in Jeddah - Rowland

Oliver Rowland says he would have been satisfied with a top-five finish in the second race of the Jeddah E-Prix before going on to dominate.

The Nissan driver finished 5.844s ahead of second place driver Taylor Barnard, having saved energy early in the race which allowed him to build and maintain a gap out in front later on. With no Pit Boost and its additional 10 percent of energy, Saturday’s race differed to Friday’s and was much more of a traditional affair in GEN3 terms, with energy saving being the aim of the game early on before a dash to the finish. Rowland played that game better than anyone to steer clear of the scramble for position in the final laps.

“Honestly, going into the race, I was pretty content even to be in the top five, not knowing how the race would go,” he said. “But I was in a fortunate position in the beginning where I could kind of be efficient, not be under too much pressure, and managed to build up a bit of energy.

“The energy today was much lower than yesterday. We knew it was going to be that stacked up peloton type of race, where you can have contact, you can be unfortunate, you can pick up punctures, you can get damage. You just have to stay out of trouble.”

He was wary of his energy usage, however, questioning the team over the radio, having not known how much of an energy advantage Friday winner Maximilian Guenther had in that race, and falling foul to over-consumption from a race-winning position in Misano last year, plus having had a similar issue at this season’s opener in Sao Paulo.

“ flashbacks of Misano, then flashbacks of Sao Paulo, and then a little bit yesterday, so there’s always a moment where I’m doubting what’s going on,” he said. “It was clear that the energy advantage was quite early on. The communication was really good with my engineer today, he was able to keep me informed of who was doing what, and thankfully it was right.

“I never let myself kind of over consume and I was pretty disciplined with that. Overall, communication was much better between the team and me to understand where I was in the race.

“Yesterday, my engineer’s radio was really poor, so I could only hear like 40 percent of what he was saying during the race, but today it was much clearer and he was much more direct and clear with his feedback.”