- SailGP: "gigantic success" of the Sassnitz home premiere
- Two different half-seasons for Team Germany
- Strong lows and highs characterise only the second season for Team GER
- Germany SailGP Team: lots of small wins
- Successes in the SailGP World League: "Like jumping on a train"
- SailGP: ZDF broadcasts the events in season six
Magical highlights, dark and light memories, lots of lessons learnt: three weeks before the start of the new sixth SailGP season, the Germany SailGP team has published a video with the reviews and balance sheets of its team members. Felix van den Hövel leads through the survey. No surprise: the home premiere in Sassnitz last August had a big impact on the racing team of entrepreneur Thomas Riedel and four-time Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel.
SailGP: "gigantic success" of the Sassnitz home premiere
What is the first thing that comes to strategist Anna Barth's mind about the past SailGP season? "Definitely the Sassnitz event! That was simply the highlight. To experience the home crowd like that, to really feel for the first time how people got carried away." This impression is also confirmed by helmsman Erik Kosegarten-Heil: "I think the success of the Sassnitz event was gigantic. The fact that we probably organised the best event in the league was an absolutely huge success for the entire team."
"Epic! Everything really came together in Sassnitz: The first race, when we took our first win. Then everything else was a huge event for us," says team manager Anne van der Wereld. "Sassnitz was the turning point," recalls James Wierzbowski.
Coach Lennart Briesenick looked back a little further in his memories. "The first thing that comes to mind is the meeting after Portsmouth." Grinder Jonathan Knottnerus-Meyer explained: "I think Portsmouth was the low point. We then had another crisis meeting in England. And then you realised that the emotions that had been suppressed a bit were slowly coming out."
Two different half-seasons for Team Germany
In fact, the still young Team Germany had experienced two very different halves in the fifth SailGP season: the dark first half of the year with the historically high Sydney penalty (minus 12 points) as a result of training collisions and poor results, then the resurrection with the gala in front of the home crowd on the Baltic Sea and also the first event victory in the team's history on Lake Geneva.
"The serious setback in Sydney," recalls Erik Kosegarten Heil, "was tough. However, there was "a lot of development on all fronts", "in the boat speed, in the starts, in the team dynamics". The team co-founder is convinced: "I think we have made huge progress." The German racing team showed a lot of this in the fifth SailGP season, especially in the second half of the year.
The end of SailGP season five also marked the departure of someone who had been with Team Germany from the very beginning: 49er Olympic champion Stuart Bithell helped build up the team as a wing trimmer alongside Erik Kosegarten Heil. He will contest season six with his compatriots in the British team Emirates GBR. In his place, Frenchman Kevin Peponnet joins the black, red and gold from Les Bleus as the new wing trimmer.
Strong lows and highs characterise only the second season for Team GER
Stu Bithell said on his farewell to the 2025 SailGP season with the German team: "We had some pretty strong highs and lows. For me, the whole second half of the season was a massive high for the whole team. At the beginning of the season, we kept showing good approaches, but never managed to bring everything together on a race weekend. We've probably managed to do that in the last four or five events."
"The second half of the season was pretty brilliant: Saint-Tropez went well, we won Geneva and made it back to the final in Cadiz. That was really quite brilliant. I think it was even better because we suffered so much in the first half," summarised Anna Barth. "We kept believing. And then it happened."
What was great was that we proved it wasn't a coincidence." James Wierzbowski
Flight Controller James Wierzbowski recalled his team's golden streak, saying: "It wasn't a one-off - four events in a row we were in third or fourth place before the final race with a good chance of making it to the final. If we can do that next season without any penalties, then we'll be right in the mix."
Germany SailGP Team: lots of small wins
Erik Kosegarten-Heil described Germany's involvement in Cádiz as his "sailing highlight": "From my point of view, that was by far the best sailing performance. Emotionally, of course, Geneva with the event victory. Not much comes close to that, of course. But also smaller things. For example, we suddenly kept up with the speed in San Francisco. There were so many small wins that we made," said the 36-year-old in his review of SailGP season five.
The rider and driving force in the Germany SailGP team also reflected on his own role, saying: "I'm more of someone who usually balances out fluctuations in the team emotionally, not someone who sets the tone. However, we are no longer sailing in pairs - as in our Olympic programme - but there has to be a strong opinion in the larger teams. I've learnt a bit to take that on myself and decide when in doubt."
Shore crew member and grinder Julian Hampe recalls that "a lot has happened" in the technical area in the fifth SailGP season: "First there were new main foils, then new rudder blades at the end of the season, many more possibilities with the boat now with the 27.5 metre long wing, simply mega exciting developments in the technical area."
Successes in the SailGP World League: "Like jumping on a train"
"I think our aim was always to learn as quickly and as much as possible," explains Lennart Briesenick. According to the Flensburg coach, the problem was that the whole project was like jumping on a moving train that was getting faster and faster. "We came from a standing start. Maybe even a few steps backwards, and had to shift into forward gear for the first time," says Briesenick.
The league has developed like crazy." Lennart Briesenick
Anna Barth and the team will open the sixth SailGP season with a total of 13 teams on 17 and 18 January in the Australian waters off Perth with two valuable insights: "Overall, we have shown that we can do it. We'll take that with us into the next season. And I also believe that hard work pays off. We just didn't give up and kept going."
Italian coach Jacopo Plazzi took this realisation even further and said: "So we're going into next season with a lot more ambition. We definitely want to make sure we start with the right foundations." The recipe for the new season? Lennart Briesenick puts it like this: "Hard work, diligence, also trying to be a bit smarter than others. Which is of course incredibly difficult in such an environment."
SailGP: ZDF broadcasts the events in season six
The environment for the German racing team in SailGP season six is made up of twelve opposing teams. New to the game after the Final of the fifth season and the decided championship The Swedish team Artemis Racing, which with driver Nathan Outteridge and a select crew is one of the favourites to win the season from a standing start.
How the Germany SailGP Team will rank can be seen again on ZDF from January. If you want to be there live, you'll have to get up early for the first event of the season in Down Under: International coverage of the Oracle Perth Sail Grand Prix will begin at 3am on 17 and 18 January here. The ZDF links for the broadcast will be added here by the broadcaster shortly before the event.
