Ben Ainslie and the Great Britain SailGP Team were winners of Sydney SailGP, beating Tom Slingsby and the Australia SailGP Team in the matchrace final.
The Sydney SailGp was decided with a final matchrace between the top two of the overall leaaderboard after five races – Ainslie and Slingsby – with Ainslie litterally running rings around Slingsby to hit the start line at full speed on the gun, and sailing away for an easy victory.
The Great Britain SailGP Team are L-R above: Iain Jensen, Luke Parkinson, Matt Gotrel, Ben Ainslie, Neil Hunter, Richard Mason.
Earlier Ainslie and the British team won race 4, the opening fleet race of day 2, ahead of Tom Slingsby, with Nathan Outteridge and the Japan SailGP team taking third.
In the second fleet race Slingsby and Australia won their first race of season 2, with Phil Robertson and Spain SailGP second and Outteridge taking third.
Ainslie and the Great Britain SailGP Team finished fourth and overall winners of the fleet racing, with Slingsby and Australia SailGP in second place.
The Sydney SailGp was then decided with the final matchrace between the top two of the overall leaderboard after five races – Ainslie and Slingsby.
In the dial-up Aisnlie litterally ran rings around Slingsby to hit the start line at full speed on the gun, with Slingsby 50 metres behind.
The Brits, sailing at 40 knots, had a 200+ metre lead by the first mark, and increased this to over 260 metres lead at gate 2.
Ainslie and the British team were sailing smoothly, looking in complete control, while Slingsby looked ragged, with a nose-dive at the gate 2 rounding.
Ainslie maintained a 200+ metre lead to gate 3, rounding 27 secs ahead.
By gate 5 Ainslie’s lead was 230+ metres rounding 23 seconds ahead, crossing the finish for what had been a straight forward win, settled by the excellent start.
Ainslie and the Great Britain SailGP Team were winners to take the overall Sydney SailGP title.
Ainslie, “It’s really down to the phenomenal guys I’m sailing with and its been an absolute pleasure to sail with them. We’ve had an amazing time – thank you Sydney!”
The victory marked Great Britain’s first event win in the SailGP global championship.
The series is looking good for the rest of the season with more teams adding to the interest. Now SailGP just have to sort out the commentary, some very obvious repetition stuff.
The teams will now look ahead to the second event of SailGP Season 2 which returns to San Francisco on 2-3 May.
All the teams should have the new modular wings by then. The British team claimed top speed in Sydney, just shy of this with 49.1 knots on day 1 of racing.
Sydney SailGP 2020 Match Final Results
1st Great Britain – Ben Ainslie – – 1 pts
2nd Australia – Tom Slingsby – – 0 pts
SailGP Sydney 2020 Leaderboard – Day 2 after 5 races
1st Great Britain – – Ben Ainslie 10 10 10 10 7 – – 47 pts
2nd Australia – – Tom Slingsby 9 8 6 9 10 – – 42 pts
3rd Japan – – Nathan Outteridge 8 7 8 8 8 – – 39 pts
4th Spain – – Phil Robertson 6 9 9 7 9 – – 31 pts
5th United States – – Rome Kirby 7 5 7 5 6 – – 30 pts
6th Denmark – – Nicolai Sehested 4 6 5 4 5 – – 22 pts
7th France – – Billy Besson 5 0 0 6 4 – – 15 pts
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