After Saturday’s Formula E race in New York, the battle in the team standings comes to a head. Overall, the six best racing teams are separated by only 26 points. While Nissan e.dams could not keep up with the front runners in the first half of the year, the French-Japanese team is now planning a “comeback”. In the duel for the best qualifying results, the driver duo even accepted a stall order in New York.
On Saturday of the race, Oliver Rowland and Sebastien Buemi reached the finish in 6th and 7th place. For the team it was the first double point result of the current season. “My race was good”, Rowland sums up after the E-Prix at ‘e-Formel.de’, “probably even one of the best of my season. The balance was right and I was able to catch up with the leading vehicles because the pace was so good. “
“However, I didn’t take too much risk to attack Robin (Frijns) and Nick (Cassidy). I knew that if I overtook them, I would have to go to qualifying group 1 on Sunday,” he admits. On the last lap he also swapped positions with his team-mate Sebastien Buemi in order to seal the start in the second qualifying group.
The Swiss had already let Rowland pass in the first half of the race. “I did that to give him the opportunity to attack,” says Buemi. “If you can’t overtake then, you give this position back.”
Rowland had already kept an eye on the championship stand before the race: “It was clear to me that with the number of points I would get for a result in the top 6, I would advance to qualifying group 1,” says the Briton. “So I told my engineer that he should keep me up to date with the championship in mind so that we can swap places if I had to drive in Q1 (due to my result).”
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In the Formula E paddock, participation in the first section of the group qualifying is a clear disadvantage. Because of the usual development of the racetrack, the pilots in group 1 usually have significantly less grip than the following groups, which makes it difficult to get into the top 10 or even the super pole.
“It was the same for me in Diryya, and I regretted it the next day,” Rowland remembers. “The team didn’t want the swap because I might have lost another position to Lotterer. But I still decided because I didn’t want to start in Q1 tomorrow.”
Oliver Rowland is in 8th place ahead of Sunday’s race in New York and will therefore take part in the second qualifying segment. Sebastien Buemi, who only reached the points for the third time in the current season, starts 20th in Group 4. Qualifying starts at 3:30 pm German time, the race starts at 7:34 pm.
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