Herald sports reporter Michael Burgess backgrounds the Ineos Britannia challenge from Barcelona.
Video / NZ Herald
The final of the America’s Cup challenger series in Auckland in 2021 was a one-sided affair.
Contested between British entry Ineos Team UK and Italy’s Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, the latter showed the superiority of their AC75 as they claimed a comfortable 7-1 series win.
The two meet again in Barcelona this week, the British now named Ineos Britannia, as they compete for the right to challenge Team New Zealand in next month’s Cup match.
Speaking to the Herald, British skipper Sir Ben Ainslie said he expected things to be much closer this time around.
“Obviously, I think back to that a lot,” Ainslie said of the series in Auckland.
“It’s a very different situation. I think most people would say that we had a reasonably significant speed disadvantage most of the time against Luna Rossa and they sailed well so it was a pretty one-sided final.
“This time it’s very different. I think we’ve got, potentially, pretty even boats, and the sailing team are very experienced; I think it’s going to be a really exciting final. I think it’s very close.”
Races between the two teams would indicate as much with the ledger at 2-2 when their AC75s have lined up in Barcelona so far; Luna Rossa winning their meetings in the preliminary regatta and first round-robin, Ineos Britannia winning in the second round-robin and the sail-off for the top seed.
It is, however, hard to know just how much you can read into past races with a new series approaching.
Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli beat Ineos Team UK 7-1 in the challenger series final in Auckland in 2021. Photo / Brett Phibbs, PhibbsVisuals
Speaking to the Herald before last month’s preliminary regatta, Ainslie noted his crew were coming in as one of the dark horses among the five challengers and would be looking to make a late charge.
They won some races without being overly impressive in that regatta as well as the first round-robin but returned for the second round-robin and in the semifinals as a different beast.
“I think the point was always we know the America’s Cup is a development game, and we were definitely still in the development phase as we started for the preliminary regattas and early on in the round-robins; focusing more on development than necessarily the racing side,” Ainslie said.
“Maybe that showed early on, but we certainly got our act together, thanks to our coaches and sailors focusing more and more on the racing skills and how to set the boat up better for racing and sail the boat better for racing.
“We saw that coming through; our performance improved a lot. There’s still a long way to go on that, but I’m really proud of the team and where we’ve got to so far, and looking forward to this Louis Vuitton final.”
With almost a week separating the end of the semifinals and the beginning of the final, there is time for the teams to continue adjusting and training in order to bring the fastest possible offering to the final series.
Ineos Britannia beat Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli in a sail-off to earn the top seed heading into the Louis Vuitton Cup semifinals. Photo / Ricardo Pinto, America's Cup
As for how much could really be modified on the boats at this late point of the campaign, Ainslie said defenders Team New Zealand had a distinct advantage over Ineos Britannia and Luna Rossa in development.
“It’s hard at this stage to make any fundamentally large changes. The only team that could do something seriously large would be the Kiwis with the time that they have, but for the rest of us it’s a little bit of configuration changes and tweaking,” Ainslie said.
“There’s so much in these boats in terms of how you set the boat up and how you sail it, and I think we probably made the biggest jump of all of the teams through those rounds.”
