SailGP – Spain Sail Grand Prix in Cadiz Day 1 to Australia

SailGP return to Cádiz, in southwest Spain, for the Spain Sail Grand Prix | Andalucía-Cadiz, the fifth event of SailGP Season 4.

All ten national teams started . . . Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, New Zealand, Spain, Switzerland and the United States.

The first race of the day was delayed as Emirates GBR experienced technical issues with the wing screen before the start.

When it did get going Diego Botin and the Spanish team kicked-off their home event with a line to line win, and maintained the pressure to finish day 1 in third place overall on 23 points.

Tom Slingsby and the Australia team improved through the day (5, 3, 1) to top the leaderboard with 25 points, with the consistant Nicolai Sehested and the Danish team (3, 4, 2) in second with 24 points.

Race 1 – A run away win for Diego Botin and the Spanish team leading from the start to take a comfortable home win. Jimmy Spithill and the USA came through to take second with Nicolai Sehsted and Denmark claiming third.

GBR were relegated to fighting for last place, finishing 8th of the nine finishers . . . SUI black flagged on the start.

Race 2 – Quentin Delapierrre and France took the win, another start to finish performance, holding off a strong challenge from Tom Slingsby’s Australia, with Jimmy Spithill bringing USA home in third.

Ainslie appeared to have boat problems and finished tenth.

Race 3 – Tom Slingsby was pushing hard for this one and took a comfortable 35 second win ahead of the Danes with Diego Botin taking third.

Ben Ainslie seemed to have his boat problems sorted, with a competitive race to finish sixth, and is ninth overall.