Australia SailGP Team touchdown in San Francisco
by Olivia Hogan / Australia SailGP Team 6 May 2023 01:09 BST
6-7 May 2023
France SailGP Team helmed by Quentin Delapierre and Australia SailGP Team helmed by Tom Slingsby in action during a practice session ahead of the Mubadala SailGP Season 3 Grand Final in San Francisco, USA © Jed Jacobsohn for SailGP
Tom Slingsby and the Australian SailGP Team's Flying Roo set sail for the first time today in San Francisco, ahead of the championship-deciding Season 3 Grand Final on May 6-7.
Two-time defending champions Australia sit at the top of the leaderboard with an 11-point lead heading into San Francisco, and are the only team to have qualified for the Grand Final. New Zealand sits comfortably in second place and looks set to join the Aussies barring a disaster. But with just one-point separating France in third and Emirates Great Britain SailGP Team in fourth, the stage is set for a dramatic, last-minute showdown between the two teams.
The weekend's racing will consist of five fleet races to complete the qualification, deciding the two teams that will join in the final, winner-take-all race to claim sailing's top purse, US$1 million.
Tom Slingsby was quizzed on the brewing battle between the French and British teams during the press conference, but said he 'doesn't mind who wins'.
"It doesn't phase us at all - we probably won't be watching that," he said. "We know both teams are dangerous and can beat us but it's nothing to do with them, it's about us."
Tom Slingsby said: "They're going to try to rattle us and put us off our game to take us down. We need to just focus on ourselves and make sure we do the small things right. We do feel like we are in a good position as we are set to be the only team who has been in a SailGP grand final before so I think the other teams will have more nerves than us."
The winner of SailGP's Impact League was also announced at the press conference. Introduced in Season 2, the Impact League is a second leaderboard which runs alongside the Season Championship and tracks the positive actions teams take to reduce their overall footprint and accelerate inclusivity in sailing. The Denmark SailGP Team presented by ROCKWOOL completed a spectacular transformation to be crowned Impact League champions.
In the most hotly contested Impact League to date, Nicolai Sehested's Denmark overcame fierce competition from defending champions, Peter Burling's New Zealand, who finished just five points behind in second. Sir Ben Ainslie's Emirates Great Britain SailGP Team meanwhile placed third.
Racing will take place on San Francisco Bay between 2.30pm-4pm PDT on Saturday and Sunday. Australian fans can tune in live on Fox Sports and on Kayo in Australia to watch the racing. Kayo are offering fans free access to both the live and replay racing, via its Kayo Freebies offer.