Despite Nissan protest: Oliver Rowland's penalty from the Formula E race in Jakarta remains in place

Oliver Rowland retains his tenth place from Formula E's recent Jakarta E-Prix. The Briton had received a penalty for an accident with Max Günther, as a result of which he lost five championship points and against which his team lodged an official protest. However, the FIA Sports Tribunal upheld the penalty, as emerged on Tuesday.

Oliver Rowland and Maximilian Günther collided in the early stages of the Formula E race in Jakarta. The cause was a manoeuvre by the Briton, which caused him to make contact with Günther and push him off the clean racing line. Günther (DS Penske) inevitably slid with his rear end against the track barrier. The resulting damage forced him to park his car. Rowland received a five second penalty and dropped from 7th to 10th place at the end of the race.

Oliver Rowland and Nissan were certain, however, that the blame did not lie with the leader of the drivers' world championship. The team collected material to support their view and approached the race direction to protest against the penalty. The decisive camera angle for the FIA was that of the roll bar of Günther's car. But even after viewing the footage, the stewards stood by their opinion.

New footage supports the FIA's decision

"In this case, this camera view of car 7 does not provide any new information and does not change the stewards' assessment," the judgement states. "Rather, it confirms and supports the original conclusion that car 7 was touched by car 23 at turn 13, resulting in car 7 being pushed onto the dirty section of track and subsequently into the wall at the exit of turn 13."

Instead of the six points Rowland would have received for seventh place, he only got a single point for 10th, but he left Indonesia with a 69-point lead over his Porsche rivals. Accordingly, he has a comfortable cushion to clinch the drivers' world championship in Berlin on 13 and 14 July. After the "double-header", a 58-point lead would be enough for him to win the title early.

By the way: A further protest by Envision Racing against the 5-second time penalty for Sebastien Buemi, who crossed the line in third place, was also rejected.