Exclusive: Formula E race director ignores safety car regulations - "It was no longer allowed to be brought in"

It was the race-deciding scene at the Mexico City E-Prix: At the restart after the first safety car, Oliver Rowland used the advantage of the Attack Mode and overtook the three drivers in front of him. However, inconsistencies emerged after the race: Did race director Scot Elkins ignore his own instructions and order the safety car back into the pits on lap 30 at a time when it was actually already far too late for that?

This is what Florian Modlinger, Team Principal and Overall Project Manager Formula E at Porsche, suggests. The decision, which was made far too late, deprived Antonio Felix da Costa, who was in the lead, of the opportunity to delay the pace before the restart in order to allow Rowland's attack mode to run out.

"For a restart after the safety car, the race director's information stipulates that the information 'Safety Car in this Lap' must be given between turns 12 and 13. At the same time, the lights of the safety car have to go out", Florian Modlinger describes the process of the restart when asked by e-Formula.news, "When the safety car was between turns 12 and 13, the lights were still on and the Kiro car (of David Beckmann) was hanging from the crane. You can clearly see in the TV picture (see article picture) that the safety car is driving through turn 13 with the lights switched on."

"This is actually the latest point at which the race director - according to his own documentation - can bring in the safety car," continued Modlinger. "When the message 'Safety Car in this Lap' came from the race director, the field was just before turn 17, so actually after the safety car is no longer allowed or supposed to be brought in."

"A mixed deceleration until the middle of turn 19"

Delaying the restart to deprive Rowland of his advantage was therefore no longer possible for Porsche. "Rowland still had 1:30 minutes of attack mode left, but (at this point) you can't take 1:30 minutes off the clock before the finish line," explains Modlinger. At this point, the race was de facto already lost for the two Porsche drivers at the front.

"If you can only do half the job, i.e. if you drive slowly to the finish line and then accelerate, the four-wheel drive has such a traction advantage that he (Rowland) already overtakes all three cars in front of him on the start-finish straight," Modlinger also rejects this possible tactic. "That's why it was a mixed deceleration until the middle of turn 19 to get out of the corner quickly so that the traction advantage at the start-finish-straight is not so decisive and Rowland can overtake a maximum of one car before turn 1."

Modlinger: "Maybe we will be the beneficiaries another time"

"That worked", he sees the strategy confirmed at the restart. "But then it became very difficult because Rowland took an extreme amount of risk. He attacked Pascal in turn 4, who was no longer able to hold and defend the line in turn 5. Antonio was also unable to defend out of the chicane, so Rowland got past on the inside."

"Very, very unfortunate - unfortunate safety car, unfortunate bringing in", summarises Modlinger. "I would be interested to know why the race director did not honour his own instructions. All in all, the safety car came at the wrong time for us - that was bad luck. But maybe we will be the beneficiaries another time."

Motorsport fans are still reminded of the 2021 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, when race director Michael Masi also partially disregarded the rules, allowing Max Verstappen to overtake Lewis Hamilton on the final lap and win his first world championship title. Afterwards, an investigation by the FIA spoke of "human error" and Masi subsequently lost his position as race director.