After the drama of the breakthrough by Ineos Britannia after five days of racing, and with the end-game looming . . . the teams comment on the racing and the expectation pressures.
Dylan Fletcher, port helm on INEOS Britannia commented . . . “It was a fantastic performance by the team today. It’s been frustrating with this stalemate each day, and it feels like so many of the races were close to ours, so to break it today and have a nice solid performance against them feels good.”
“The sea-state picked up quite a lot from the warm-up with the mistral blowing the swell in with metre waves that were really short, and quite breezy again so it was certainly a hard day for the pilots.”
Asked how the team will approach the upcoming racing, Fletcher added:
“We will debrief like always and for us it’s just one race at a time. We know we’ve got to win every race in reality until the first to seven so we’re happy and looking forward to Friday.”
Francesco Bruni, port helm for Luna Rossa came ashore and was upbeat about the situation the team now face, saying:
“We know very well the position. It’s not something that we like but sport is sport, and you have to accept when you lose. Today we lost in the field, no breakdowns, nothing, we just didn’t execute well a couple of things and then also didn’t sail very well.”
“For me we still have a good chance of doing it and we definitely are not feeling the pressure. We know that we can do it and that we have to just sail the best we can now.”
Talking more about pressure, something that his co-helm, Jimmy Spithill, has previously described as being a “privilege,” Bruni added:
“There’s going to be some pressure there yes, but I don’t feel the pressure probably because I have Jimmy on my side and honestly, I’m super relaxed. We haven’t made huge mistakes today, just small things here and there and we lost two points, but that’s not the end of the world.”
“We know that we can win. We know that we can do well, and we just have to perform better the next time. We have no other chances. Jimmy has had bigger comebacks in his life, but we have to all support him, he cannot just do it by himself.”
There were few celebrations shoreside from the British team who were keen to keep expectations in check but there’s a growing sense of destiny building up around the Port Vell that this could be the first time since 1964 that Great Britain has had a boat in an America’s Cup Match.
Although INEOS Britannia stand on the cusp of writing a fabulous chapter in this Louis Vuitton 37th America’s Cup they know all too well that in Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli they face a competitor that will never roll over.
The winner of the LV Challenger Final Series will face the America’s Cup holders, Emirates Team New Zealand, in the 37th America’s Cup Match which starts just over a week later on Saturday 12 October 2024.
(Magnus Wheatley, for America’s Cup media)
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