After a crash in qualifying, Oliver Rowland redeemed himself with a well deserved win around the narrow streets of Monaco, marking himself as the driver to beat in FE season 11.
The race wasn’t straight forward for the championship leader. At one point in the race he was down in fifth with two Mahindras and two Andrettis ahead of him. Although Rowland had attack mode left and the front four didn’t, he wasn’t confident about his chances.
He told Media in the post-race press conference, “honestly, when I got dropped back to fifth, I was really angry. I don’t know if you were listening to my radio, but I was pretty stressed out at that point.”
“I was shouting at my engineer, because I kind of wanted to go two laps before or a lap before, which I wouldn’t have lost a position, but then I ended up dropping back to fifth.”
Last round in Miami, many drivers got penalised for not using their Attack modes before the race ended due to safety cars and red flags. The drivers punished slipped down the order.
It was clear that Rowland was concerned over a similar situation emerging. Especially with incidents common around the principality. Rowland admitted that he had wanted to use his attack mode earlier in the race, citing Miami as the reason.
He said, “I wanted to go earlier, but for the team, they seemed pretty relaxed. So yeah, I think they were probably calculating average safety car times and the four minutes at the end, and they probably had it a little bit more under control, but I was a little bit concerned.”
From strength to strength
Outside of Miami, Oliver Rowland’s season has been incredibly impressive. He has managed to take the top step at three out of the first six races in Season 11.
After the struggles in Miami, the championship leader admitted that he felt as though he was getting complacent and was eager to get back to proving himself.
“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, FP2. And eventually get the win in the race, which was pretty stressful.”
On the opening laps, Rowland complained about a weird noise coming from his car. Initially his team told him not to worry, but throughout the race he had gearbox temperature warnings appearing. He spoke about it to media, explaining how he worried it may have been a problem from his crash in qualifying.
He said, “Obviously, I’d crashed in qualifying, so I reported that. And then they were like, oh, I think you’re hearing things. They basically told me, and I was like, maybe I am. But then I noticed it straight away.”
“Even whilst I was driving, I could hear some strange noise on the back. And 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 fully on. I clearly had some sort of issue that was probably due to my crash in qualifying.”
Luckily, the issue didn’t impede Rowland’s opportunity to take the win. But celebrations will have to wait until after the second race, tomorrow.
