FE | Nissan: a rev counter error stopped Rowland at the end

The second stage of the Misano Grand Prix for Oliver Rowland ended with just nine corners to go, when his car fell silent and ran out of energy. A hard blow for the team to swallow, especially considering that up to that point the Briton had been the author of a very positive race which had placed him among the candidates for the podium.

Rowland spent much of the race in the lead group, alternating with other drivers at the ePrix lead. If yesterday the break came with three laps to go, today the group began to open up already about ten laps before the checkered flag, with the British driver himself and Pascal Wehrlein starting to get ahead of the pursuers.

The two in fact took a margin of over a second, but Rowland himself, once back in the lead, then opened the gap on his rival on the German in the Porsche, also in a rather surprising way because, with about eight laps to go, he could count on 2% less energy. Precisely this phase of extension, not only on the rest of the group but also on Wehrlein himself, had an important impact on the management of residual energy, putting the Nissan standard bearer in a particularly difficult position.

The situation became even more critical when, three laps from the checkered flag, his battery had 3% less energy than not only Wehrlein, but also Jake Dennis, Nico Muller and Max Gunther. The underlying problem is that, despite suffering a negative delta in terms of battery management, the Englishman continued to lap at a pace that had allowed him to remain in the lead, but which then forced him to stop with a few corners early, thus putting an early end to his ambitions not only of victory, but also of finishing with a podium placement.

Speaking after the race, Rowland admitted that he had not noticed his energy situation until he realized that his steering wheel's dashboard indicated an incorrect data just one corner before retiring: according to the system, in fact, Rowland was perfectly in line with the preset management values ​​but, in reality, the Japanese manufacturer's driver still had more than half a lap to go.

“I was fast in the corners, I was following my target and I followed the strategy as we had planned. This kind of thing has never happened to us, nowadays it's a [procedura] as simple as that, it should have been checked and maybe we should have doubted,” the Briton said of the race.

This situation was caused by a procedural error in the management of the software. The FE cars clearly start before the finish line, with a short sprint to position themselves on their own spot. However, when he crossed the starting line when the traffic lights went out, the system counted that stretch as a lap already completed, which is why the software clearly thought it had to complete one less lap before the checkered flag than at the actual race distance.

Oliver Rowland, Nissan Formula E Team, Nissan e-4ORCE 04

Photo by: Alastair Staley / Motorsport Images

In fact, in Formula E the teams do not receive telemetry data remotely except for some vital parameters necessary for reliability, which is why the engineers actually have to rely on the indications transmitted by those in the cockpit and by the information transmitted by the FIA ​​in order to better evaluate the strategy. In fact, the driver himself informs the team and reads the values ​​on the dashboard indicated by the software via a code, which is then transmitted by the driver via radio and deciphered by the engineers in the garage.

Also for this reason the team struggled to give a correct assessment of the situation in time, despite the energy indications visible on the international feed showing how Rowland was having difficulty managing the battery.

“It's frustrating, but if I thought this was my only chance to win all season I would be really disappointed, but I feel there will still be opportunities. I have confidence thanks to the points we have won so far and the performances we have shown, so I have confidence for the future,” added Rowland, who could have achieved his fifth consecutive podium without retiring. In fact, despite the procedural error, with more careful management in the final laps of the race, the Briton would still have the margin to stay on the podium, also taking advantage of the duels behind him.