The Emirates Great Britain Sail Grand Prix Team has finished in seventh place at the Oracle San Francisco Sail Grand Prix, leaving them in second place on the 2025 Season leaderboard.
The event was full of drama as Australia suffered a wing collapse at the start of the seventh race. The wing of Tom Slingsby's F50 collapsed as the team approached the start line, thankfully all crew members were unharmed and an investigation into the cause of the incident is under way.
Emirates GBR Driver Dylan Fletcher said the San Francisco event was "a weekend to forget" for the British team after a few frustrating races, but that the team was "focusing on the bigger picture" and pleased to be just one point off the top spot of the overall season leaderboard.
"We always knew this season would be a bit of a rollercoaster," Fletcher said.
"If someone had said to us at the start of the season that we would be second overall and just one point off the top after five events we would have snapped their hand off. Ultimately this was a disappointing event for us, we couldn't quite catch a break. We made too many mistakes and we changed our starting technique which obviously didn't work out. It's now about putting our energy into the next event in Rio in May and we're excited to get racing there."
Emirates GBR Strategist Hannah Mills said: "It really felt like a battle all weekend. SailGP isn't easy, we are racing against the best people in the world so you've got to be at the top of your game. We know we can perform so it's about figuring out why we weren't firing this weekend and mitigating that. It's a long season, we've still got lots of events left so to be near the top after a top weekend is great for the overall season."
Reacting to Australia's wing collapse, Mills said: "It's pretty tough when you start a race and there's an incident where someone's wing goes down. We are all friends here so we were all worrying and it was a huge relief when we got the news that everyone was OK. We are all hoping they will be back on the course racing alongside us in Rio."
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