Oliver Rowland takes full responsibility after surprise Formula E crash

Oliver Rowland has taken full responsibility for his race-ending crash in Formula E's Sanya E-Prix following a rare error by the reigning world champion.

Rowland was at the heart of a chaotic event on China's Hainan island, with the Nissan driver being hit several times during the red-flagged race.

At one stage, the Briton had worked his way to the front and looked set to score strong points before quickly dropping back towards the bottom of the top 10.

In the closing stages, Rowland found himself with an energy advantage that he wanted to capitalise on by pushing harder, but he braked too late at Turn 4 and crashed out of the race.

"The race was going quite well," Rowland told RacingNews365. "I just got a little bit frustrated, I think, at one point. There was a little bit of miscommunication, and then it was my fault. I braked too late.

"I knew Pascal [Wehrlein] didn't have any energy, so I wanted to get past him quickly, and I thought I probably had a bit more than the guys who had over-consumed during their Attack Mode. 

"They were a bit optimistic, then I was way too optimistic. So, I guess sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but it's on me."

Rowland's 'staying calm' challenge

Formula E's return to Sanya for the first time since 2019 was an incident-packed affair, particularly for Rowland, who found himself being hit several times.

One of the biggest impacts came on the exit of the Turn 9 hairpin, where Sébastien Buemi struck the Nissan driver. Remaining calm became a major challenge for the 33-year-old, who admitted there were moments of real frustration.

Despite crashing out, Rowland suffered no damage to his title challenge and remains 19 points behind Mitch Evans, who also failed to score.

Asked how challenging it is remaining calm while being hit often, Rowland explained: "It's actually quite difficult to stay calm. I think that's the biggest thing.

"It's easy to get frustrated, and there were certain points in the race when I was frustrated, but I think I've started to recover from that more quickly.

"Actually, the one at the end was more frustration about the result than the contact. At one point, I thought it was me and da Costa fighting for the win, and he had a five-second penalty. Then it turned out I was sixth or seventh, and I didn't understand what was going on.

"So, yeah, not really good enough on my behalf."