This weekend the the first 3 days of 12 round robin stages took place leaving one team unbeaten and firm favorites now. The next 3 days of the round robin are next weekend and how the results have changed since the warm ups prior to Christmas. Each race is worth 1 point with the 3 teams involved in 8 races overall.
These round robin races are so important as the overall winner will then go on to challenge Team New Zealand for the America's Cup in February over the best of 13 races. There will be two disappointed teams that will have wasted 4 years of training and with it a small fortune invested in their sailing boats. They will compete for third and fourth spot later this month in their own special event once the finalist is known.
Team Ineos from the UK had teething problems during the friendly races pre Christmas and had so many issues to fix. Having the Mercedes Formula One engineers on hand had to play a major factor as this weekend after 2 races they are unbeaten. They have 4 races left before the finalist will be decided needing to beat Luna Rossa and Team America only once more achieving an unassailable tally of 6 points.
Team Lunar Rossa, Team USA and Team Ineos have this week to make things right before race day on Friday. The USA team lost their opening 4 races and disaster struck against the Italians today as they capsized handing the win to Luna Rossa. This left them having to be recued with a gaping hole in the side of the hull. They have 0 points and look out of the running already even if they win the next 4 races.
Lunar Rossa on 2 points has to win every race and all hinges on their race this coming Friday against Team Ineos. If Lunar Rossa loses that match up then the maximum points they can achieve is only 5.Ineos are in the pound seats right now and suddenly look like clear favorites.
Team America looked so good in the friendly races and now their challenge lies in tatters and are having to rely on Luna Rossa beating the UK team hoping everyone ends up tied on 4 points each. This looks unlikely as Ineos was so dominant over the first stages of the round robin. things can change though and expect Ineos to improve still as the data collected will help them add what is missing. The difference this time around was that they never had the drag effect as the boat was out of the water for 90 percent of the race.
The American Team have repairs to do this week as their boat had a gaping hole in the side meaning they will have to set up using their second boat this week. This automatically sets them at a disadvantage as instead of working out what went wrong and how to improve they are having to start from scratch. Will their second boat be identical to this damaged boat or do they have to transfer parts over? No one likes to see this happen and wants everyone to finish fair and square. Luckily for Luna Rossa as they were trailing the American team when this happened which would have left Team Ineos UK having to win only one of their remaining 4 races to qualify.
