The good news for Nissan at São Paulo earlier this month was that they came away with 19 points more than they did in 2024. The bad news was it really should have been at least 25.
But it all came down to the breaking of that cardinal sin – two teammates hitting eachother.
When Norman Nato and Oliver Rowland collided exiting the Turn 4-5-6 complex on lap 17 it broke the latter’s rear toe-link putting him out immediately.
Nato was furious after the race. Normally the most placid of men, his face was flush with anger. Was it justified?
Looking back at the incident it is essentially started by Pepe Marti, in the last seconds of his Attack Mode, overtaking Nato into the first right-hander and then swinging out to claim a good line for the final section.
Ahead of Marti is Antonio Felix da Costa who has to back out of the complex slightly as the front of the pack accordions up. This is because after the mad flurry of the first Attack Modes, the pace of the race has eased off again considerably in to a mid-race lull.
Only Nico Mueller is in Attack Mode and he will soon surge to the front, but for this moment the nature of the circuit and the flattening of the pace is catching the Nissan drivers by surprise a little.
Nato is slightly compromised which gives Rowland an opportunity to run alongside his teammate on the outside, which he does for a short period. But as Turn 5 becomes Turn 6 Rowland is pinched as the apex approaches and his left front impacts Nato’s right rear pitching him immediately sideways and in to the wall which triggers the fatal blow for his race.
Rowland is also penalised as Max Guenther capitalise on his lost momentum and demotes him down to ninth position. But he recovers brilliantly to seal a well-deserved second place.
‘I was Trying to Behave’
Team Principal Tommaso Volpe described it all to Formula E Notebook as “a little bit bitter, because it’s never good to see two cars crashing with each other.
“We are aware that these things can happen in motorsport, but we need to put extra care also, because the competition this season will be much tougher,” said Volpe.
“If we want to win the team championship, we need to be all of us very, very careful and not making mistakes. And the drivers, they should consider the points of the other driver as gold.”
These can be seen as wise words after the event but Volpe is right and is known to have been deeply unimpressed with the incident that probably cost his team an early lead in the team’s title chase.
Season 12 is important to Nissan for lots of reasons. Firstly, it will not feature in the manufacturers championship because it has lost its customer after the demise of McLaren.
Secondly, it knows it has a strong package in the Gen3Evo, something it has worked hard for, and in Rowland it has one of the championships stand-out drivers.
But the incident between its team leader and Nato is a warning that taking a fight to Porsche, Jaguar and possibly even Citroen and Andretti for team’s honours can’t afford self-sabotaged points.
On trying to pinpoint the precise reason for the incident in São Paulo, Volpe said that “it could come from many things.”
“Sometimes it is maybe even a word from the race engineer to warn at the right moment that there is the other car coming. It’s not just in the ends of the driver could be also that is a way for all of us to consider that no way we will fight for the team championship if we keep on scoring points only one side of garage.”
Rowland was a little furtive in the media pen after the race. High on a great result from a lowly grid position, he checked himself a couple of times and concluded he needed to see a replay.
“It (the race) started to get a bit silly, like too slow, and I just thought I’m not staying here because it’s trouble,” he told FEN.
“So, I got myself to the front. We knew the temperature of the battery was going to be a problem at the end, and by going earlier it helps that problem quite a lot, so I was trying to manage that.
“At one point, when I was leading on that first one, I thought, this is my race, and then two laps later, I found myself in eighth. It can quickly change, it was even a surprise to me.”
On the contact itself, Rowland reckoned that further evaluation was needed.
“I haven’t seen it, and I don’t really want to make too much of a comment before I watch it again,” he added.
“My feeling was, I was there, and his car didn’t allow me to be there, if that makes sense. But I need to watch it with him, and we need to discuss it with the team and understand what happened.
“I’m not here to fall out with someone. It’s okay for me, I got the result, but I’m also disappointed for him, nobody wants that. We’ll analyse it and see what we think afterwards, but from my perspective, I was trying to behave.”
