05/12/2026
by Emma Harrison
The 2026 Rolex SailGP Championship runs from mid-January to late November 2026, with 13 events across 11 countries to determine the Rolex SailGP Champions.
It’s a testing season with a range of different challenges for all 13 teams, and there’s plenty of world-class racing to look forward to.
However, a good start here at the season opener – the Oracle Perth Sail Grand Prix presented by KPMG – will surely give plenty of confidence to the three teams contesting Sunday’s final, while priceless early points on the board will set a marker for the teams missing out on the top three.
But who are the teams the bookies fancy to win the first event of the 2026 Season, who is fancied to win the all-important Fleet Race 1, and are there any hidden gems in other markets ahead of the season’s opening event?
Let’s find out.
Championship favorites fancied to draw first blood
As we know from our season-long analysis of the Championship odds, the BONDS Flying Roos SailGP Team are seen as the ones to beat, and, on home waters in the opening event of the competition in Perth, it should come as no surprise that they’re also the joint-favorites to win the opening event of the season.
They’re available at odds of 4.17 to win the final in Perth, with the bookies not only taking into account the class, experience and brilliance of the team as a whole, but also the leadership qualities of Tom Slingsby.
But the bookies are also factoring in home advantage and, more precisely, the support that comes with racing in front of your adoring fans.
All that said, this is the first time the Rolex SailGP Championship has moved to Perth, where wind, waves and a scorching sun will all play their part.
There was a SailGP event in Australia last season but that was in Sydney, so all the teams can expect very different conditions from what they experienced last year.
For what it’s worth, the BONDS Flying Roos secured a third-place finish in that event last year but can consider themselves pretty unlucky not to have done even better.
Remarkably, they made the podium in each of the seven fleet races, winning three of them, but couldn’t make it count when it mattered the most in the final with that third-placed finish being the best they could show for their efforts.
Emirates Great Britain SailGP Team looking to go back-to-back down under
If the Aussies didn’t win last year in Sydney, then who did?
It was the Emirates Great Britain SailGP Team who did so, winning the final and, in the process, securing not only their third straight podium finish of the season but also their first win of the 2025 Season.
Given that they went on to win the Rolex SailGP Championship as a whole, it’s no surprise that the Brits have been priced up at the same odds of 4.17 as the Aussies to win the Perth event.
The best of the rest
Hot on the heels of those two are the Black Foils SailGP Team at 4.44, just a bit bigger than the two favorites just mentioned.
By his own high standards, Kiwi driver Peter Burling had a modest outing last year in Sydney, with a slow start across the first four fleet races costing his team a place in the final, though Burling did rally late on to secure a runner-up spot in Fleet Race 5, followed by a win in Race 6.
It was all too little too late last year, but you can’t discount this team’s credentials.
Next in the odds to win the Perth event are the ROCKWOOL Racing SailGP Team, who are available at odds of 8.0 to be first past the post on Sunday afternoon. The Danes finished in a very creditable sixth place overall last season, and the respect shown to them by the bookies is justified.
A curious case comes in the form of Sweden’s Artemis SailGP Team.
The Swedes aren’t fancied to challenge for the Championship as a whole- they’re the biggest outsiders of the lot at 90.0 alongside the United States SailGP Team – but the bookies are approaching their first effort here in Perth with caution.
At odds of 8.7 to win the inaugural event of the season, they’re the fifth-favorites for it, a far cry from their status as the joint biggest outsiders of the lot for Championship glory.
Predictable prices for Race 1 win
There are no big surprises when it comes to who can draw first blood in Race 1 on Saturday.
It’s 5.56 on both the Aussies and the Brits, 5.71 on the Kiwis, 8.7 about the Danes, 9.52 on the France SailGP Team, and 10.0 on the Swedes.
But remember that SailGP is an extremely unpredictable competition where any team can win on their day, so big odds don’t necessarily mean that the team in question is out of contention.
Can Artemis SailGP Team make a splash on debut?
A final word on Sweden’s Artemis SailGP Team. This is all very new territory for them as a team, but there’s no shortage of SailGP experience among the individuals making up the team.
It’s a concept not lost on the bookies, who aren’t taking too many chances and are offering odds of just 2.38 that they make Sunday’s final.
That’s a big ask for a team making its debut in a competition as hard as this one. But if they come good over the weekend and book their place in Sunday’s showdown, you might not get another price like that on them anytime soon.
Starting points for our US readers
Starting points for our UK readers
Starting points for our Global readers
SailGP at Prediction Market Sites