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analysis oliver rowland nissan stagione 11

How Nissan's Oliver Rowland won in Mexico City, in under a minute

Analisi 21 gen 2025 4 Min

Oliver Rowland knew he would not have won the Hankook Mexico City E-Prix without a big assist from a late-race Safety Car. But it still left the Nissan driver with a lot to do – and a very narrow time window to do it in.

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analysis oliver rowland nissan stagione 11

^{Words: Scott Mitchell}

A tense E-Prix looked to be boiling down to a fight between Porsche pair Antonio Felix da Costa and Pascal Wehrlein, and Andretti’s Jake Dennis, as a bigger earlier gaggle including Rowland, Jean-Eric Vergne (DS PENSKE) and Jaguar TCS Racing's Mitch Evans was eventually split in two by Dennis’s interloping team-mate Nico Mueller.

READ MORE: Four things we learned in Mexico City

Rowland shuffled around the pack between second, which he’d moved into briefly with a great opportunistic move exiting the final corner, to as low as a still-impressive sixth spot in the first half of the race.

Having then smartly worked his way back to fourth, and the lead of the second group of cars, he was almost four seconds off the lead. He nibbled away at it a fraction and it was not an impossible gap to make up but it was unlikely when he armed himself with six minutes of ATTACK MODE and only eight laps remaining.

Then there was a flash of concern, which turned into Rowland’s big chance. A yellow flag caused by David Beckmann’s stranded Cupra Kiro quickly turned into a safety car. It was perfect for closing the gap to the leaders in an instant, but it also ate into the ATTACK MODE that Rowland had remaining.

“We were initially unlucky with the timing,” Rowland said. “However, fortunately once this period ended, we were left with around a minute of extra power.

“I just knew I had to be decisive when making those overtakes.”

One minute to make it count

A very efficient clean-up and restart left him with just enough time to complete almost exactly one racing lap with extra power and four-wheel-drive, with Rowland staring at the back of the leading trio when the race resumed.

This was the perfect opportunity, but Rowland could afford no slip-ups. He had three cars to pass and three clear places he could use his superior traction and power to do it: the start-finish straight, the exit of the first corner and run to Turn 2, and the short burst out of the tight chicane towards the stadium section.

It took around 45 seconds from Rowland crossing the line at the restart to make good on his advantage and scythe past his rivals: Dennis despatched into Turn 1, Wehrlein brushed aside into Turn 2, and finally da Costa (despite his best defences) pushed past right on the inside into the right-hander before the stadium.

“It was fun, it was stressful – it always is,” Rowland said. “When I took the last ATTACK MODE I was like ‘right, let’s get to the front’ – and I would have done that, and then the Safety Car came out and I was like ‘ah, no, not again’.

“Then it came in and the emotion of trying to get back through again was incredible.”

Rowland’s timing and judgement was impeccable. Theoretically, if he had got it wrong, there may have been a final chance through and out of the final corner at the very end of the lap. But he would have been down to his final seconds of ATTACK MODE and potentially in a deeper energy hole – and, just 10 seconds after Rowland took the lead, the stranded Jaguar of Evans necessitated another safety car anyway.

Rowland would have not got the extra chance. The race would have been neutralised before he got to another overtaking spot. It made Rowland’s moves even more critical than they’d already appeared.

Luck or right place, right time?

Was it lucky? There was a degree of fortune certainly. But the gap the top three had built to Rowland was, in part, to the ebb and flow of how different drivers played their races strategically. Rowland had only used two minutes of ATTACK MODE the first time, and part of that choice was to be in a position to go on the offensive in the final stages. If he’d taken any other strategic route, the chance would not have materialised as it did.

So, he was given a path to victory in Mexico, but still had to do a lot right. And not just with those decisive moves that effectively won him the race in under a minute, with 10 seconds to spare.

Keeping the Porsches at bay in the closing few laps with between 1-2% energy deficit – and Rowland admitted he was not efficient enough in this race, maybe because of the battling that broke out in the secondary lead group - was another challenging final chapter in this victory.

Throw in the fact that Rowland had been unlucky in the Sao Paulo opener not to fight for the win there because of a drive through penalty for a power usage infringement, and maybe this was just a case of how things can balance out over a season.

“You could argue I deserved to win in Sao Paulo,” Rowland said in Mexico. “A little bit of fortune today kind of makes up for the bad fortune there.”

SCHEDULE: Where, when and how to watch or stream the 2025 Jeddah E-Prix Rounds 3 and 4

A staple on the calendar since Season 5, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, gets set to host another pair of races taking place on Friday 14 and Saturday 15 February 2025. It's our first visit to Jeddah, and will be a our first double-header event of the GEN3 Evo era.

View the full schedule in your time zone and check the broadcaster listings or tap the Ways to Watch button above to find out where to watch all the racing action where you live.