Nissan lost a likely easy victory in Formula E’s season-opening Sao Paulo E-Prix because a systems control issue caused drive-through penalties for all four of the cars running its powertrain.
Works Nissan driver Oliver Rowland was a dominant force - leading the early stages, being efficient on energy targets and able to save his second attack mode until later than his rivals at the front of the field.
But a penalty for the systems control issue causing an overpower moment in the launch off the grid at the first restart “cost us the victory” Nissan team principal Tommaso Volpe told The Race.
The Race understands that the specific issue related to the transition of power from front to rear powertrain and tipped all Nissans over the legality threshold at different points.
Rowland’s team-mate Norman Nato and Nissan-powered McLaren drivers Taylor Barnard and Sam Bird all picked up their penalties in the opening stages, whereas Rowland looked in control of the race until his glitch happened at the restart following the red flag caused by Jake Dennis’s stranded Andretti Porsche.
“It was the control systems during the start procedure, something that we will look at urgently next week to make sure that it doesn't cause penalties anymore,” Volpe confirmed.
“For some reason we didn't spot this specific issue in all testing we have done so far. We'll address it.
“Now the frustration is very hard to swallow. To be honest, we are very happy to see on track what we were assuming we would have achieved in terms of improvement.
“Then probably we need to put things together better. Also on the team side, because we also got a penalty for Norman because of a confusion after the red flag.”
That was a reference to Nato not starting from his correct position on the grid after the first red flag, which meant his sixth place on the road became 13th via a post-race five-second penalty.
Rowland rued his non-score for his eventual 14th place but also rationalised it with the bigger picture of he and Nissan showcasing a turn of pace and efficiency that would have likely beaten the Jaguars and Porsches in a straight fight.
Though it was the penalty that took him out of the lead, Rowland’s race had already been compromised by the final two minutes of his attack mode allocation being wasted because the red flag for Dennis came out while he was using it.
“I felt like I got a few blows, to be honest,” Rowland told The Race.
“I was in the perfect position to kind of pull away and almost finish the race with the second attack mode, and then the red flag came, so I lost that advantage of having the four minutes I had left.
“Then, on the restart, I had a good SOC [state-of-charge] so it was all still fine.
“But on my first start, because I was at the front and I lifted quite early, I didn't get to the transition speed.
“So, in the second one, when I lifted later and fought Antonio [Felix da Costa] to T1, I then got the same problem they [the other Nissans] got.
“It should have also been spotted, and I would have just lifted before the transition point and been OK.”
How McLaren Salvaged Unlikely Results
McLaren turned a nightmare opening race of the season into an astounding 3-4 result when at one stage Barnard and Bird ran at the very back of the field.
Both served early drive-through penalties and looked to be starting the season with no points before the two red flags and an adaptive strategy allowed them to collect the team’s biggest points score since McLaren joined the FE grid at the start of 2023.
Barnard and Bird’s third and fourth masked an otherwise troublesome day that included a range of technical issues from a battery charging problem to driveshaft and brake-by-wire dramas.
But McLaren capitalised on the brace of red flags to close back up to the pack and then was among the few teams that still had a second attack mode deployment to use.
That proved hugely powerful given the extra potency of the 350kW mode via the new four-wheel-drive and grippier Hankook tyres.
Despite the unlikely result, McLaren team principal Ian James remained concerned about the penalties and said a full investigation into why the control systems launch issues transpired was urgently needed.
“We need to understand why that was the case,” James told The Race.
“It's something that had been picked up over the course of the weekend. It was felt that it had been resolved, and clearly it wasn't.
“So I think there's some work to be done there to get to the bottom of that and make sure that that can be sorted before Mexico.
“These things are incredibly complex, and of course you want to bring the most performance out that you can, so you tend to run things to the edge, but at the same time, that's what testing's for. We shouldn't be coming into a situation like we had today, or across this weekend.
“We'll be supporting as much as we can in trying to resolve that, and I think if we get on top of that, then the package that Nissan have delivered is looking strong.
“We then need to make sure that on our side, we've got that operational rigour to capitalise on it.”
