A fourth-place finish rarely generates headlines, but for La Roche-Posay Racing Team, the result at the Louis Vuitton 38th America's Cup Preliminary Regatta Sardinia means more than the standings alone suggest. Racing in the Bay of Angels off Cagliari across eight fleet races aboard identical AC40s, the French crew accumulated 55 points, finishing just four points off the podium. Luna Rossa ultimately won the regatta, defeating Emirates Team New Zealand in the match-race final to claim the first official victory of the AC38 campaign.
For a team competing in its first event of this America's Cup cycle, those points carry real significance. The crew of Quentin Delapierre, Diego Botín, Jason Saunders, and Florian Trittel had prepared together in Lorient, but training in isolation can only take a programme so far. Cagliari put that preparation under genuine competitive pressure for the first time, and the lessons it delivered were immediate and unambiguous.
The early races exposed the gaps. Starts cost the team positions they could not claw back, routing decisions restricted options at critical moments, and some manoeuvres lacked the sharpness that high-speed foiling at this level demands. In a fleet of this quality, small errors accumulate fast. A fractional delay off the line, a slightly compromised crossing, a brief loss of speed through a manoeuvre, and the leaders are gone. The short, unforgiving race format offers almost no opportunity to recover within a single race once those moments have passed.
What set the French team's weekend apart, however, was the speed with which they responded to those problems. Progress across the three days was visible and measurable. By Sunday, racing in lighter winds that suited the crew's developing coordination, La Roche-Posay Racing Team closed the regatta with a third place followed by a second. Those results gave the overall picture a strongly positive character, finishing with momentum rather than regret.
Aboard the AC40, the crew was organised with Quentin Delapierre and Jason Saunders on the starboard side and Diego Botín and Florian Trittel on the port side. Each pair has a direct view of only their half of the racecourse, which means the whole boat's performance depends on constant, precise communication between those two pairings. Steering decisions, sail trim, course selection, and flight management all require each sailor to contribute their portion of the picture in real time. That kind of instinctive, automatic coordination is built through competition exposure rather than training alone, and Cagliari was the first chance to stress-test it under race conditions.
The shore operation was equally engaged. Sports director Philippe Presti and coach Philippe Mourniac led the analysis and debriefing work that connected each race to the next, giving the crew a structured process for addressing what went wrong and reinforcing what worked. Performance manager Lucas Delcourt and his group worked closely alongside reserve athletes Enzo Balanger and Timothé Lapauw, both of whom were fully integrated into performance monitoring, navigation analysis, and daily crew support throughout the event.
Quentin Delapierre, skipper and driver of La Roche-Posay Racing Team:
"This regatta was a first challenge for all parts of the team: the sailors, performance, shore crew, technical team, and organisation. We ticked a lot of boxes, and that boosts confidence throughout the group. It's a very good thing for the future. From a sporting perspective, there were many good things, but also many mistakes. What's positive is our ability to remain objective, to question ourselves, and to correct them quickly. We rarely repeated the same mistake twice. Of course, we would have liked to go further in terms of performance, but for a first preliminary regatta with this group, the results are good."
The broader fleet standings showed just how fiercely competitive this America's Cup cycle is already proving to be. Luna Rossa topped the points table with 63, with Emirates Team New Zealand second on 60. Those were the two programmes that contested the match-race final, which the Italians won to claim an early and symbolic milestone in the campaign. Among the weekend's more striking storylines was the performance of Luna Rossa Women & Youth, who finished third overall with 59 points, making clear that the Women & Youth entries in this cycle are genuine competitive forces rather than supporting cast. For La Roche-Posay Racing Team, the full standings provide a useful early benchmark, a snapshot of where each programme sits at the outset of a campaign that runs through to Naples 2027.
Trimmer Florian Trittel offered his own assessment of what the weekend delivered: "It's been a very positive weekend for La Roche-Posay Racing Team. We learned a great deal, with many points to address, but very useful lessons for the future. We knew we were going to make mistakes: the important thing was to be able to understand them, correct them, and improve day after day. This progress isn't just reflected in the results, even if our fourth place fairly accurately reflects where we are today. We need to keep our heads up and remain very positive. Finishing higher would undoubtedly have been ambitious given the level of our competitors and our preparation time, but what's very encouraging is our learning curve. It's steep, perhaps faster than that of some teams, and we feel we're closing the gap."
With Cagliari behind them, the programme now turns toward a considerably more demanding challenge. Before the second preliminary regatta in Naples, scheduled for 24 to 27 September 2026, the team will shift its focus entirely to the AC75, the actual America's Cup racing yacht. Sailing in Lorient is planned to begin at the end of June and continue throughout the summer, with simulator work in the intervening period designed to embed the automatic responses the crew will need before stepping aboard a boat of that scale and complexity.
Philippe Presti, Sports Director of La Roche-Posay Racing Team, reflected on what Cagliari confirmed: "It is a very good day for the team. We arrived at the event with the aim to improve every day, and a day like today confirms that we are moving in the right direction. With the scores achieved today, we would have been able to reach a final. It is therefore a real satisfaction. The overall assessment is very positive. We are still a young team, both among the crew and across the structure as a whole. This was our first real showdown in competition. We need these moments where the team is put under pressure, where we have to adapt, react, and learn quickly. I am very satisfied, and even quite proud, of how the group responded. The members of this team are hungry; they are eager for redemption. We made mistakes, but that is normal: you can't progress without making them. I would not change anything about our progress. Today, in this launch phase, we finish as the second challenger in the regatta. We will now put the AC40 aside and focus on the AC75, the America's Cup boat. There will be a lot of work in the simulator to ensure that when we go out on the water, the automatic responses are already well established. There will also be a second preliminary regatta in September in Naples."
CAGLIARI IN BRIEF
Event Louis Vuitton 38th America's Cup Preliminary Regatta Sardinia
Location Cagliari, Sardinia
Waterway Bay of Angels
Dates May 21-24, 2026
Boat AC40 one-design
Format Eight fleet races, followed by a match race final between the top two crews.
Final standings after the 8 fleet races
1. Luna Rossa — 63 points 2. Emirates Team New Zealand — 60 points 3. Luna Rossa Women & Youth — 59 points 4. La Roche-Posay Racing Team — 55 points 5. Emirates Team New Zealand Women & Youth — 50 points 6. Tudor Team Alinghi — 40 points 7. Athena Pathway Women & Youth — 38 points 8. GB1 — 27 points
Match race final Luna Rossa / Emirates Team New Zealand — Winner Luna Rossa
La Roche-Posay Racing Team crew Quentin Delapierre — skipper, Diego Botín — skipper, Jason Saunders — trimmer, Florian Trittel — trimmer
Reserve athletes Enzo Balanger — skipper, Timothé Lapauw — trimmer
Best French results 3rd (race 7) and 2nd (race 1 and race 2) 8)
Next step Second preliminary regatta in Naples, from September 24 to 27, 2026. Until then, La Roche-Posay Racing Team will dedicate the next few months to sailing in AC75s in Lorient, from the end of June and throughout the summer.
