France driver Quentin Delapierre will remain focused on executing aggressive starts to lead fleet racing when San Francisco’s racing action resumes.
The French converted impressive starts into excellent fleet racing results of 1-3-3 to finish at the top of the leaderboard - putting them in pole position to leapfrog Spain into the winner-takes-all Grand Final.
The projected leaderboard now places France one point ahead of Spain and on track to take their place in the three-boat, $2 million Grand Final against Australia and New Zealand.
Heading into day two, which will see the F50 fleet go head to head across two more fleet races, Delapierre said his strategy to be ‘focused and really patient’ remains the same.
“It’s not finished for sure - they are unbelievable athletes and Spain is not easy to beat, (…) so we just need to try and put five points between them and us.”
He revealed his plan coming into the opening day of racing in San Francisco was to engage with Spain directly only if forced.
“The first goal was just to be first and the second plan was if the Spanish come for us to just react as a match racing move,” he said. “They didn’t come and we just tried to rip in on the starts and lead the races.”
SailGP’s Season 4 Grand Final in San Francisco continues on July 14, with racing from 2.30pm PDT.
