- Day 2 of the Chicago SailGP saw Tom Slingsby and the Australia team win their second SailGP event.
Slingsby and his Australia team recovered from a poor (for them) performance on day 1 to squeeze into the Final, which they proceeded to dominate to take their second event win of Series 3.
In the first race, race 4, of the second day, Quentin Delapierre and France took the win ahead of Canada and Britain, with the Aussie team down in ninth place.
This left Slingsby with it all to do to join Canada and Britain in the final. Their target was Pete Burlings New Zealand who were holding third place.
From the start of race 5 Australia were fighting for the lead with Canada, while New Zealand struggled at the back.
Slingsby going on to take the win ahead of Phil Robertson’s Canada and Jimmy Spithill’s USA, and claim the third spot in the three boat Final by one point from New Zealand.
This made the Final fleet: Canada of Phil Robertson, Great Britain of Ben Ainsie and Australia of Tom Slingsby.
In the Final race Slingsby led Robertson and Ainslie across the start and round the first mark, stretching away, never to be troubled by two chasing teams.
The Australia Team claimed their second event win and Slingsby demonstrated his ability to seemingly pull out a winning performance just when its needed.
Skipper of the Great Britain SailGP Team, Ben Ainslie said:
“Good and bad day for the team, great to get into the podium final which is goal number one, but we didn’t quite get it right at the start. It was tight with the Aussies they pipped us at the start and we also ended up behind Canada, and in these conditions it was always going to be hard to make gains.
“Overall, happy with the performance of the team and next up home waters in Plymouth where we look forward to putting on a show for our home crowd”
Plymouth in the UK, 30 – 31 July, is the next stop for SailGP Series 3.
Chicago was the second of 11 confirmed venues (with the Australia Sail Grand Prix – Sydney announced earlier this week) that will form the Season 3 calendar.
Plymouth in the UK is the next stop for SailGP, before the fleet visits Copenhagen, Saint-Tropez, Cádiz, Dubai, Singapore, Sydney, Christchurch and San Francisco.
Related Post:
First Season 3 SailGP event to Tom Slingsby’s Australia Team
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