New Formula E champion Oliver Rowland wasn't even on the grid two years ago.
He pretty much voluntarily dropped off it halfway through a coruscating 2023 season, his second with Mahindra, with the team in a state of rebuild and with an initial Gen3 package that was easily the least competitive on the grid.
Rowland admitted as much in the immediate aftermath of his 2024-25 title success, secured with two races to spare after a fourth-place finish in the second Berlin race.
"I got to a point at Mahindra where I wasn't wanting to race much anymore. I lost a bit of motivation, I wasn't enjoying myself and I decided to take a big plunge to get out," he said.
In Cape Town, a couple of months before he decided to up sticks from Mahindra, I caught Rowland's eye in the paddock where he had just received the news that the team had to pull its cars (and those of customer team Abt) before the race due to a suspension issue. The look he gave back was a mix of bewilderment and resigned anger, followed by a comic shrug.
It was already percolating in his mind, and that of his manager Steve Hewett, that he might need to look elsewhere - not for the long-term, but for the short-term too.
In team principal Tommaso Volpe and several other key figures at the Nissan team he ended up reuniting with, Rowland had plenty of believers. The timing was right too because Nissan was starting out on its own as a factory unit after several seasons with the edams operation.
Rowland's second go with Nissan initially started steadily but soon he was smashing in podiums and wins on his return to the Japanese manufacturer. They understood each other perfectly and the old hand fit the new gloves, and vice versa.
"I wouldn't say I knew this was going to happen, but it was what I would hope for," Rowland told The Race, reflecting on his decision to jump ship to Nissan in the wake of this success.
"And Tommaso and Dorian [Boisdron, team director] did know that this was going to happen and they never stopped pushing.
"He [Volpe] told me, 'Come join us, we believe in you. We've got a plan: our car won't be very good next year, but the year after, we'll win'."
As a consequence, 2025 always felt like Rowland's year.
That he executed the first half of it so cleanly and so decisively was 2025-spec Rowland all over. A natural blend of assertiveness in the cockpit on strategy calls and excellent racecraft, he and Nissan were just too strong for their direct opposition.
Allied to that, Rowland is a much more rounded and mature proposition than he was even two years ago.
In a headspace that is almost the polar opposite to the one that occupied his mind earlier in his promising ascent up the junior ladder, he has become a kind of self-fulfilling, winning-and-achieving machine.
That's a proposition his opponents will be hard pressed to stop becoming a double champion around this time next year.
Quotes from Georgia Williams
