Land Rover BAR fought back in their sixth race of the Louis Vuitton America's Cup Qualifiers. Skipper Ben Ainslie and the team sailed their best race to date, winning another great pre-start against Artemis Racing, accelerating around the Swedish team before hitting 43 knots on the first leg to lead by 10s at Mark 1.
Crédit : R Pinto
The British crew put together a series of good manoeuvres. Changes to the set up freed up tactician Giles Scott, who made sure the team stayed between the finish and the opposition. At the finish line from start to finish.
This was the first day of the second half of the double round robin, where the teams sail each other twice. The result solidifies the British in third place with four points, behind the Defender, Oracle Racing USA on six points, and Emirates Team New Zealand on five. Behind Land Rover BAR, the rest of the fleet are all on two points.
Ben Ainslie, Skipper and Team Principal: "It was a big day for our team. We've had a couple of really tough days with a couple of losses on the run and we really needed to turn that around. We had some pretty frank conversations last night, and we all knew what we had to do today. It's a big boost for the team and we must now keep improving and moving forward.
"A few people have mentioned the two points that we carried into the Qualifiers from the World Series. Coming into this event it has been well documented that we were struggling for straight line speed. Thankfully our performance in the Louis Vuitton America's Cup World Series was very strong. It was a target for the team to get the points, but also for a new team in the Cup to show we could race and win at this level. They've turned out very useful, and we may well need them to get to the next stage."
From S Alexander
