Day 2 of the Marseille SailGP Season 1 Grand Final and the only suprise was a race win for Phil Robertson and the China SailGP Team.
Robertson used his match race prowess to take a China team first win in Race 5, staying ahead of Australia and Japan.
Not only was this a great result for China, their 3, 1, 5 scoreline for the day takes them into third place, ahead of Dylan Fletcher’s Great Britain team who struggled all day to finish with a 6, 4, 6, scoreline in fourth place.
All the talk of super strong winds was just that . . . all talk that never materialized, the light, fluky winds continuing.
Tom Slingsby’s Australia took the first win of the day ahead of Nathan Outteridge skippering Japan, with China in third place.
Then we had the win for China ahead of Australia and Japan (with Brit interest in wing trimmer Paul Campell-James).
And then a final race win for Japan who drifted home ahead of Australia, with Billy Besson and France overtaking China just before the finish to provide some excitement for the local spectators.
Sunday will see two final fleet races, followed by THE match race between Australia and Japan for the US$1 million prize pot to conclude the Marseille SailGP Season 1 Grand Final.
Marseille SailGP Season 1 Grand Final – Day 2 overall after 6 races
1st Australia – Tom Slingsby 9, 10, 9, 1, 2, 1 – – 226 pts
2nd Japan – Nathan Outteridge 10, 7, 10, 2, 3, 1 – – 219 pts
3rd China – Phil Robertson 6, 8, 6, 3, 1, 4 – – 162 pts
4th Great Britain – Dylan Fletcher 8, 9, 8, 6, 4, 6 – – 162 pts
5th United States – Rome Kirby 5, 4, 5, 5, 5, 5 – – 137 pts
6th France – Billy Besson 7, 6, 7, 4, 6, 3 – – 135 pts