Nissan’s Oliver Rowland was exceedingly happy with sixth place in the Monaco E-Prix after a wretched qualifying result.
The title hopeful qualified a lowly 15th, a result he would explain was down to a steering fault, as well as a team miscalculation that cost him time, preventing one more lap being driven.
“If you offered me sixth before the race, I’d have snapped your hand off,” Rowland said.
“Qualifying was disappointing, I had an issue with steering, it wasn’t straight on the straights, so I was struggling with confidence, and then we were out of sequence out of the pits, and missed the last lap.”
Rowland added that, after changing the rear end of the car before the race, the issue was resolved, giving him the best possible chance of a drive through the field.
“We weren’t great [in qualifying], and it was compounded by having to start far far back, but the race was mega.
“We managed to race in a good way, make-up good positions when it was important, and to finish sixth from where I started was a mega result.”
Rowland has stated on numerous occasions recently that the Nissan car has exceeded expectations on many of the circuits this year, so has stopped predicting what may come next.
“Last year, they [Nissan] dominated here, this year we were nowhere, last year they were rubbish in Berlin so hopefully we can do well!
“We need to work on one lap a little bit, I’m not entirely happy with some things but our race pace compared to what it was last year was really good, and we can be super competitive so I think we need to go back to the drawing board on one lap.
“I’m not that confident for Berlin or Shanghai but I also wasn’t for Misano, so let’s see.”
