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Nissan e.dams driver Oliver Rowland has blamed accidentally pressing the full-course yellow speed limiter button for ending his victory chances in the ABB FIA Formula E Hong Kong E-Prix.

Rowland had qualified second behind HWA's Stoffel Vandoorne and passed his rival on the run to Turn 1 at the start of the race.

The Nissan driver held onto the lead until the first racing lap after an early red flag, which was called after a collision between Jerome D'Ambrosio, Pascal Wehrlein and Felipe Nasr.

Virgin's Sam Bird then nudged Rowland into the Turn 1 hairpin, and the contact was enough to force Rowland into making his costly mistake.

"Sam caught the back of me in the middle of the corner, and as [I turned the] steering wheel - I lost it as he caught me - I activated the full-course yellow [button]," Rowland told Autosport.

"When I got to 50km/h I couldn't go faster.

"I thought it was the pitlane limiter, so I turned it on and off twice.

"Then I was just pressing buttons and it [the problem] went.

"You could do it 10 million times and it would happen once."

Bird crossed the line in first after a late clash with Andre Lotterer of Techeetah, but was then penalised for the incident gifting the win to Edoardo Mortara.

Rowland said he did not blame Bird for the contact that caused his race to unravel.

"I don't think Sam really did anything wrong, sometimes it happens," said Rowland.

"Everyone complains [about] contact but you need to get used to it.

"Sometimes you get pushed, sometimes you push. What he did wasn't a penalty and I'm not going to cry from him touching me.

"I don't think this is my fault either, there's nothing you can do in that situation.

"Each race has been better and better and I need to keep going on."

Rowland dropped from the lead down to 10th after the clash with Bird, and he later caused a safety car when he stopped on track due to damage.

"I smashed into pretty much everyone and every wall going and the car broke," he said.

"I made a bit of contact with Daniel [Abt] and [Gary] Paffett afterwards so the car took a beating.

"At the point it broke I didn't touch anything, I need to check [the cause]."