SailGP: Vettel's team stumbles, New Zealanders reach for 2 million US dollars
Max Gasser
· 24.06.2024
The Kiwis are the first finalists of the fourth SailGP season. Olympic gold medallist and two-time America's Cup winner Peter Burling and his experienced team were hard to beat, especially in the races on Sunday.
The importance of the starts, which he had emphasised the day before, was evident in all races. In the final, he even managed a start-to-finish victory ahead of Canada and Great Britain. "I'm very proud of the team. We know that only the last race really counts now," said the 33-year-old.
The Grand Final will be held in three weeks' time in San Francisco with the top three in the standings in winner-takes-it-all mode. The season points earned previously will be cancelled and the winner of a single race will receive two million US dollars in prize money. In previous seasons, it was always the Australians who held their nerve in front of the Golden Gate Bridge. Although the team led by helmsman Tom Slingsby has not yet qualified for the final race, they took an important step in that direction in the Big Apple.
SailGP: 2 million dollar duel between Slingsby and Burling?
It didn't really look like a successful weekend for them until the last race. But with a marvellous victory in the last race, they catapulted themselves to fourth place in New York. In the overall standings, the team overtook Spain again and climbed to second place. "We wanted to build up some momentum ahead of San Francisco, which we didn't really manage to do," commented Slingsby. Nevertheless, the team is travelling to the west coast with confidence thanks to past successes.
In order to actually be allowed to compete in the last race of the top three teams, a good performance must also be delivered in the regular event races at the last appearance of the season beforehand. The same applies to Diego Botin's Spaniards, who are currently two points behind in third place. France (5 points behind) and Canada (9 points behind) in particular are lurking behind and still have a good chance of qualifying for the 2 million dollar final.
Meanwhile, Germany's foiling experts struggled to find good speed in the challenging conditions on the Hudson River on both days. After the penultimate event of the season, the Germany SailGP Team is still ahead of Switzerland in ninth place in the standings. Helmsman Erik Heil summarised: "The marginal foiling conditions are still the biggest challenge for us. The starts were not outstanding, but okay. Because we are a bit slower and always get on the foils a bit later, we always lost out over the races. That's difficult to defend."
Point penalty: Sebastian Vettel's SailGP team already behind before the first start
The event had already started badly for the team of Thomas Riedel and Formula 1 world champion Sebastian Vettel. In the practice race on Friday, they were unfortunate enough to make contact with the Australian team. This not only led to a points deduction in the season ranking, but also for the event in New York. The team started with four points in the red.
On the first official race day, the ten teams were then confronted with extremely challenging conditions. Thunderstorm cells initially brought gusts of up to around 20 knots of wind and then increasingly calm conditions in the second race, meaning that no third race of the day could be organised. "It didn't go well and we're not satisfied," was the sobering conclusion of two-time bronze medallist Erik Heil after finishing eighth and ninth.
With at least somewhat more consistent foiling conditions at the lower wind limit, things went much better on Sunday, although this was not fully reflected in the results. After seventh place in the first race of the day, the team was well on the way to finishing in the top five in the second race of the day. Before the last lap, however, the decision was made against an additional manoeuvre and in favour of the disadvantaged side of the gate. This cost them valuable metres and they crossed the finish line in front of Governor's Island in eighth place. From there, around 8,000 spectators watched the spectacle against what is probably the most impressive backdrop in the SailGP.
From next season: first South American team in the Formula 1 of the seas
"We're still satisfied for now," said Heil back on land. "It was good that these conditions came again, because we have to get better at it." The newcomers were the only team to promptly take the opportunity for more training strokes immediately after the finish before the course was taken up by the event final.
There was also plenty of room for improvement, at least for the Americans. In front of the New York skyline, the negative series continued with a completely hopeless tenth place. Meanwhile, helmsman Taylor Canfield provided the biggest highlights with plenty of jibes at Canada's Phil Robertson at the press conference on Friday. The latter was not above firing back and finished the event in second place, well ahead of the home team.
However, due to a lack of financial independence from investors, his team is not yet secure for the coming season. The announcement of the first South American team for the coming season puts the Canadians, as well as Spain, France and New Zealand, under even more pressure. They are the last remaining teams to be financed by the league.
The new team comes from Brazil and is to stand on its own two feet from the outset. The state-owned public limited company Mubadala from the United Arab Emirates is behind the project. Brazil is one of the most successful sailing nations in the Olympics, so there should be no shortage of high-performing athletes. No names have been officially announced yet, but alongside greats such as Robert Scheidt, the return of former Team Germany strategist Kahena Kunze after the Olympic Games also seems possible. 49er FX helmswoman Martine Grael, with whom Kunze won two consecutive Olympic gold medals, is also likely to be a candidate.
