Chicago, Illinois – 6/18/2022 – By Miranda Blazeby, Digital Editor – SailGP – The U.S. SailGP Team finished the day with a 8-9-7 racing record and at the bottom of the leaderboard in a performance littered with errors. Meanwhile, Phil Robertson’s Canada finished at the front of the pack, followed by Great Britain and New Zealand. Teams battled tricky conditions of choppy waters and unpredictable wind shifts that saw Chicago live up to its name as the ‘Windy City’.
Reflecting on the day, Spithill said the team would ‘regroup, learn the lessons and move on’ ahead of racing resuming tomorrow.
“We’re really disappointed – certainly all the fans deserve better,” he said. The main failing of the team was an inability to ‘execute clean laps’, he said. “It’s as simple as that – there were too many mistakes and too many errors.”
The team’s poor performance came as a surprise, Spithill said, following positive training sessions earlier in the day.
“Our training runs before the race were very good but clearly when we got on the track with the other boats we weren’t able to execute clean laps and we need to figure out why.” he said. “It’s hard to say until we look at the footage from the boat and the cameras.”
Due to light wind conditions forecasted for tomorrow, the nine F50s will be fitted with the largest 29m wing. Looking ahead to racing resuming tomorrow, Spithill remained upbeat.
“Tomorrow’s going to be quite a different day and we’re going to the big wings and the much lighter conditions, so we’ve just got to come out and try get a couple of results and keep ourselves in contention for the season.”
