Rowland overcame strategy worries en route to Monaco success

Oliver Rowland feared a repeat of the Attack Mode dramas that left him missing out in Miami en route to his sixth win of the season in the first race of the Monaco E-Prix double-header.

At the previous round Rowland was one of a number of drivers to be dealt a 10s penalty after a late red flag prevented them from using their full Attack Mode allocation, but it’s so far proven to be a minor blot on an otherwise impeccable copybook.

“It’s been a great start to the year,” Rowland said. “I’m in a good place mentally with the team, I’m very confident that the team has given me a really good car. I’m able to be confident most weekends.

“Miami was a bit of an outlier, but I was really determined this weekend to get back to the level that I’d been at the first four races. I think I got a little bit complacent there, but it’s nice to do a good qualifying, be happy during FP1 and 2 and eventually get the win in the race, which was pretty stressful.”

Rowland left his second use of the additional power and four-wheel drive late in Monaco – a call that came from his team that left him rather anxious, not only because of the potential ramifications if a late red or yellow flag had come, but because it also initially cost him track position.

“I was pretty stressed out,” he said. “I was shouting at my engineer because I wanted to go two laps before, which wouldn’t have lost a position. But then I ended up dropping — dropped about to fifth — and I think at the time, I had the two Andrettis and two Mahindras, so I was like, ‘Ah, they might play the game to slow me down.’

“The team seemed pretty relaxed. I think they were probably calculating average safety car times and the four minutes at the end. They probably had it a little bit more under control, but I was a little bit concerned.”

Another thing playing on Rowland’s mind was what he described as “a strange noise” coming from his car. He crashed in the Final of the Duels stage of qualifying, and while the minor suspension damage was easily repaired in time for the race, Rowland was thinking there could have been more lingering effects – and they ended up needing to be managed by the end of the race.

“When I set off to the grid, I heard a strange noise, like a whining noise on the back,” he explained. “I reported that, and then I they were like, ‘I think you’re hearing things.’ But I noticed it straight away, even whilst I was driving, I could hear some strange noise on the back.

“Then after about 10 laps, I had a gearbox temperature alarm. In the beginning it was just flashing on and off, and then at the end, it was really on, so I clearly had some sort of issue that was probably due to my crash in qualifying.

“I don’t know if it got hurt a lot, but I guess we’ll see in the post-race analysis.”