SailGP Day 2: Spain take Grand Final in San Francisco plus full video replay and highlights
by Richard Gladwell/Sail-World.com/nz 15 Jul 00:29 BST
14 July 2024
Spanish team celebrate - SailGP- Race Day 2- SailGP Season 4 Grand Final in San Francisco, USA. July 14, 2024 © Adam Warner/SailGP
Spain SailGP have won the SailGP Grand Final in San Francisco, winning a thrilling Grand Final and denying the defending Champions, Australia, the chance of a four-peat.
The SailGP event win rounded out a big day in sport for Spain, which had earlier won the UEFA European Championship and the Men's Singles at Wimbledon.
Australia was second in the Final - having held that trailing position since the start, with New Zealand always a safe third, despite briefly edging ahead of rivals Australia on the third of six legs.
The Spanish kept their two more fancied competitors at bay throughout the event. New Zealand appeared to overcook its start, being fractionally early and backing off fractionally after realising its error.
That was enough to allow Australia and Spain to execute a perfect start, and the Kiwis and Season 4 champions never got a look in.
While the Grand Final might have lacked the tension of the two earlier races sailed on Sunday, it did evolve into a game decided by who made the fewest mistakes.
The Kiwis made theirs at the start and appeared to have some system malfunctions - which may not have been material but was undoubtedly a distraction. Ahead of the start of the Grand Final, the support teams were working frantically on the after end of the platform - stitching fairing, with a sewing needle working overtime - with two support team members working together on an issue. Others were clustered in the centre of the boat. However, the Kiwis never looked 100% and were forced to try and get a breakthrough shift by splitting tacks and boundaries with Spain and Australia.
Try as they might, the Kiwis could not gain any advantage from their boat positioning, and as has been played out so often in the SailGP Season 4, the rich - sailing in clear air at the head of the fleet - just got richer.
With the breeze coming from slightly left of Saturday, the Marina Green side of the course was always favoured. Every upwind leg, the Spanish took that side, followed by the Australians, with the Kiwis having to take the opposite shore to gain by getting out of phase with the other two.
Australia suffered a system malfunction involving the raising and lowering of their foils, which caused the three-time champions to fall off their foils on the penultimate leg of the race, allowing the Spanish to extend to a comfortable margin.
However, the Spanish did not have it all their way, with skipper Diego Botin revealing after the finish that they had suffered rudder damage on the final downwind leg.
Spain was the third and final team to make the Final but looked to be out of it after dropping 6 points on Day 1 to let a powering French team back into contention for the Final.
French skipper Quentin Delapierre looked to have achieved the impossible right to the final tack of Race 4 when they misjudged a tack to leeward of Denmark, who was out of contention for the Final. The French made contact with the Danes, sustaining rudder damage, and they went from 5th place at the time of the incident back to 10th in Race 4. A steep climb back to the Final proved impossible for the French when their shore team could not replace the damaged rudder between races.
That was the coup de grâce for the French team, who could not sail the fifth race and saw their dreams of making the Final vaporise, while the Spanish were a shoo-in for the three-boat Final.
Despite an indifferent first day, Australia had clearly done some homework on their Day 1 performance and was amped up to win their fourth Final. While they sailed confidently in Races 4 and 5, their bravado faded in the sixth and Final race, and like New Zealand, they never seriously bothered the Spanish.
The series did nothing to resolve the vexed issue of which team would be dropped before the start of Season 5 to make way for two new incoming teams.
Canada finished ahead of the other two on the championship points table for San Francisco.
Spain won the Season 4 Grand Final, leaving France the most likely to be dropped if it is done on a performance basis. If it is on a social media following basis (which is why one F1 driver holds his place), then Canada would have to be safe. However, the whole matter is in the hands of the team marketing agents - and any of those who can come up with the readies north of $ 40 million will have printed their get-out-of-jail card and will be on the start line for Season 5.
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