Sir Ben Ainslie speaks with Christopher Reive about his decision to step down from SailGP and his America's Cup future. Video / NZ Herald
Following his shock decision to step away from an onboard role with the Great Britain SailGP Team, Sir Ben Ainslie says the call is not indicative of his America’s Cup career.
Ainslie has long been a fixture in the America’s Cup landscape, first hitting the scene as a part of Team New Zealand’s wider crew for the 2007 regatta, before joining Oracle Team USA for their successful 2013 campaign.
This year’s regatta in Barcelona will be the third time Ainslie has been at the helm of a British challenger, and the 46-year-old told the Herald he hadn’t considered whether this campaign might be his last in an on-water role.
“It’s slightly different with the America’s Cup in it’s an event we have every three or four years and we build up to it. There’s a massive design focus and then the competition itself, and I’m just 100 per cent focused right now on making sure we do the absolute best job we can as a team to get the boat on the water and rinse every ounce of performance out of it,” Ainslie said.
“When you’re in that kind of mindset, it’s pretty hard to think about what happens next, to be honest. I just want to do the best job I can for the team, with the team this summer and we’ll see what happens after that.”
Ainslie said his decision to step away from driving in SailGP and only be the Great Britain team’s chief executive allowed him more time to focus on the America’s Cup campaign with a busy period on the horizon as they prepare to launch their race boat.
For the 2024 cycle, teams were only permitted to build one new AC75, having to use their 2021 model as a training and development vessel along with their AC40 and LEQ12 – both scaled-down models of the big foiling monohulls.
Ineos Britannia have been testing and developing equipment on their LEQ12 'T6'. Photo / Paul Todd, America's Cup
It has provided another layer of mystery to the event, and Ainslie said it wouldn’t be until those race boats started to hit the water that anyone would really know how competitive they will be when racing beings.
“I think if you asked [Team NZ chief executive] Grant Dalton, [Luna Rossa team principal] Max Sirena or any of the other teams, they’d be lying if they could give you an answer because they’re all, frankly, really strong teams,” Ainslie said.
“It’ll be incredible to see when these boats start lining up, I expect them to start lining up in July when there will be some official practice racing, and that’s when we’ll really start figuring out who’s on the pace and who’s struggling.”
America’s Cup meets Formula 1
In the last campaign, the Brits looked to have designed a formidable package as they dominated the round robin stage of the challenger series, going through to the finals without dropping a race, before falling to Luna Rossa just one step away from challenging for the Auld Mug.
For their current campaign, the team joined forces with the Mercedes Formula 1 team in the design process in a bid to come up with the fastest possible race boat; one of two America’s Cup teams to make such a move with Alinghi Red Bull Racing and the Red Bull F1 team working together.
“It’s been a really good experience. They’re an incredible outfit, a huge amount of success in one of the most difficult sports there is to win.
“They’ve put a huge amount of effort into our team. There are inevitably differences in the structure of the organisations. If you look at the Formula 1 design team, it’s roughly 8-900 people and America’s Cup design team might be anywhere between 25 to 50 people, so getting that organisation flowing, getting the structure right has taken us a little bit of time, but we’re certainly up and running at full potential right now.
“The secret is getting the boat in the water and making sure that we execute that well, and we get absolutely the most performance we can out of the boat.”
As for when he expected to be launching the boat they will try to dethrone Team New Zealand on, Ainslie wasn’t giving too much away.
“I’m not going to give you an exact date, unfortunately, but it’s certainly going to be this summer, I can give you that much, and perhaps a little earlier than that.”
