Oliver Rowland and Lucas Di Grassi have spoken of their displeasure in Madrid at a letter to the FIA signed by all Formula E drivers being leaked to the press.
Drivers put up a united front this week, submitting a letter to FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem to call for better stewarding decisions at race weekends.
All 20 drivers signed the letter, which caused intrigue upon its publication, as the original intention was to keep the details private.
The talk of the paddock in Madrid, drivers have voiced their displeasure at the letter going public, and what has been labelled as blowing up the topic.
Reigning champion Rowland explained the rationale behind the letter, highlighting the desire to work with the FIA to improve decision-making.
“The letters intended to improve things, and I think there’s certain elements of the stewarding, all sorts of different things that were a concern for everybody, and the drivers’ briefing had been pretty disjointed the whole start of this season, so I think we felt like it was the right time to say something,” answered to Motorsport Week when questioned about the letter.
“But again, it’s not a letter aimed at saying you’ve done this wrong, or you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s more like, what do you think about this, guys, let’s focus on it and improve it. I think it’s good, I think it’s been well-received, and of course I think it was a bit of a shock for them, but I think it’s good. Just a quick sort of two-point on that.
Rowland believes the issue has been blown out of proportion, highlighted the intended message for unity, before ruling out a driver being behind the leak.
“That’s the idea behind it, he said. “I mean, we all have to be aligned to send something like that, right? You can’t just send it with four or five people.
“I do think it’s been slightly dramatised, but I think the biggest problem is that who got hold of the letter and how, for me, is the biggest mystery, and I think that needs to be looked into, because I’m not sure it came from the drivers, to be honest.
“As soon as the teams had hold of it, it was quickly, not long before, someone was on the phone asking questions. So, yeah, for me, there’s a rat somewhere.”
Lucas Di Grassi shares Oliver Rowland concerns
Long-time Formula E driver Di Grassi also shared his concerns, outlining the need for modernisation and stating the impact of the letter had been overblown.
“I agree with the opinion of the other drivers, the latter was just to make, Formula E is very specific, it’s something new. Not even FIA, FIA existed I don’t know for how many hundreds of years, but it’s the first real electric motorsport,” he said to Motorsport Week.
“So there’s a lot of things that are completely new, that needs still to be developed, right?
“We still need to understand with electric racing, what are the possibilities, what needs to be exact, changed.So, Formula E is a very specific category, and I think the latter shows that what we want to do is to discuss with the current guidelines and base of FIA, what needs to be changed, specifically for Formula E, to make the sport better and more fair and better for the future.
“So I think it’s a great addition, it’s a great community value from all the drivers to be together on this, and at the same time, I was surprised that some vehicles tried to create a lot of clickbaits around the story, in which there is nothing really substantial about it.
“The latter is very straight forward, and it’s just, again, as an essence, try to understand where are the problems, how can we change the process or the methods to make it better. That’s it”.
“I think it shows that all of us are aligned, that changes could be done to make it better. It’s not a single opinion, and it shows that if twenty drivers from different perspectives, fighting for titles, not fighting for titles, young, old, everybody kind of understand that could be done better, some stuff, that means that there is a reason for it.
READ MORE – Formula E grid drops bombshell ‘letter of concern’ to FIA president – report
Discussion about this post