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New Zealand endured a day to forget in Valencia, while fellow Kiwi Phil Robertson delivered two race wins for Red Bull Italy.
Black Foils finished sixth, fourth and sixth across Saturday’s three Group A races. Peter Burling’s crew scored only two points. They end Day 1 seventh and last in Group A. The Black Foils simply were not part of the fight at the front of SailGP’s opening day in Valencia.
The contrast with fellow Kiwi Phil Robertson could hardly have been greater.
Robertson drove Red Bull Italy to victory in the opening race, beating BONDS Flying Roos and Mubadala Brazil. After finishing seventh in Race 2, Italy bounced straight back to win Race 3. That leaves Robertson second in Group A on 10 points, only one behind Tom Slingsby’s BONDS Flying Roos.
For New Zealand, the damage was repeatedly done early.
“We struggled to get off the line and get into a good position at mark one,” Burling said after racing.
He described three different problems across the three starts, including difficulty adapting to late changes in start times.
The final race also brought frustration involving Nathan Outteridge’s Artemis.
“We obviously had that big incident with Artemis at the very end where we kind of killed our acceleration to give them space and then they didn’t even get a penalty,” Burling said.
The problem was that Valencia offered few opportunities to recover afterwards.
“It’s super hard if you’ve got a tough start sitting in the gas, trying to take a few different opportunities, a few different options,” he said.
“We really struggled to make our way forward.”
There is some perspective. Only two weeks ago in Sassnitz, the Black Foils topped their group and reached their first SailGP Final since February.
Burling also believes the difference between Saturday’s result and being competitive was smaller than the scoreboard suggests.
“I felt like they were super small details and we’ll be right there.”
They will need to be. After Day 1 in Valencia, the New Zealand SailGP Team has considerable ground to make up. Robertson and Red Bull Italy, meanwhile, are right where the Black Foils expected to be: fighting for a place in the Final.
