Emirates Great Britain SailGP took a stunning victory on Sydney Harbour, which saw the team vanquish NorthStar Canada and home favorites Australia in a tightly fought Final.
Emirates GBR’s win in Sydney cements the team’s spot at the top of the 2025 Season leaderboard, with triple champions Australia in second and Season 4 champions Spain in third.
Much of the Final saw Fletcher jostle for first with the man he replaced at the start of the season – Canadian driver and double Olympic gold medalist, Giles Scott. Fletcher claimed a narrow defeat, rounding the last mark just metres ahead of Scott to claim victory in front of thousands of cheering fans watching from Shark Island and the official spectator fleet.
The Tom Slingsby’s Australia finished third, maintaining their podium placing in every race of the weekend, showing clearly that they remain one of the league’s form teams.
Emirates Great Britain Team CEO Sir Ben Ainslie commented: “What an amazing race, I’m so proud of them. Dylan has done brilliantly – he’s world class and that’s why we wanted to get him into this game. He’s got a top team around him and what’s impressive is how quickly he’s gelled into this group.”
Celebrating, Fletcher said, “Personally it’s massive where we’ve come – from the start of SailGP in 2019, where I began my journey. To return and win here is amazing. I’m just really proud of the whole team and how they’ve included me.”
Two final fleet races were completed Sunday to select the three teams for the winner-takes-all final.
In Fleet Race 6, Peter Burling’s New Zealand took their first race win of the weekend ahead of Canada and Australia, but it wasn’t enough to keep the Kiwis in the hunt after a disappointing opening day, in which the team accumulated just seven points on the event leaderboard.
New Zealand came eighth in the Sydney event, bumping the team off the podium and into fourth in the season overall leaderboard.
In the seventh and final Fleet Race of the weekend, Australia took their third win to top the table ahead of the winner-takes-all final. Switzerland were second and Germany third, with Canada fourth, enough to claim the third Final Race spot.
With the points from Sydney now tallied, Emirates Great Britain tops the Rolex SailGP 2025 Season leaderboard, with 27 points. Australia, who finished on the podium in every race this weekend is now second overall with 24 points, and Spain rounds out the podium in third with 20 points.
The Rolex SailGP Championship 2025 continues next month with a return to California and back-to-back events in LA (15-16 March) and San Francisco (22-23 March) plus an iconic first stop in the stunning Rio de Janeiro, 4-5 May 2025.
The Rolex SailGP Championship is driven by the sport’s top athletes, with national pride, personal glory, and bonus prize money of US$12.8 million at stake.
