06/11/2026
by Emma Harrison
The bookmakers have set their odds ahead of the Mubadala Abu Dhabi Sail Grand Prix 2025 Season Grand Final, presented by Abu Dhabi Sports Council, on who will be crowned the champions of the 2025 Rolex SailGP Championship, and according to them, the Emirates Great Britain SailGP Team is the one to beat.
Dylan Fletcher and his crew are the 2.5 favorites to win Sunday’s Grand Final, with the bookies unable to split the BONDS Flying Roos SailGP Team and the Black Foils SailGP Team, giving them both 2.9 chances.
The big outsiders of the four teams who can still win the Championship are Los Gallos SailGP Team, available at odds of 71.4. There are good reasons for those long odds; they’d have to finish the Mubadala Abu Dhabi Sail Grand Prix at least four places higher than the BONDS Flying Roos – an uphill task at the best of times – and then come out on Sunday and win the Grand Final, too.
Why Are Emirates GBR Favorites?
The first and most obvious reason is that they’re top of the standings on 85 points.
That means that they only need to finish ninth or better at the Mubadala Abu Dhabi Sail Grand Prix to make Sunday’s Grand Final.
That position at the top of the 2025 rankings is also proof that they’ve been the best and most consistent team over the course of the season.
No one has secured more fleet race wins than their 11 or more Top 3 finishes in fleet races than their 29. They’re also the only team with three event wins to their name and are fresh from winning in Andalucía – Cádiz last time out, having also won in Saint-Tropez in mid-September; so that’s two event wins out of the last three. They’re certainly the in-form team.
The Case For the Black Foils
The 2025 season has been so closely fought that after 11 events, the Black Foils are just three points behind their British rivals on 82. That means they join Emirates GBR as the favorites to make Sunday’s final
Though the Kiwis can’t match the three event wins that Emirates GBR have managed, they’re the only team alongside Los allos to have won twice, doing so in the opening event of the season in Dubai last November, and then again in Portsmouth in July.
There’s also not much between them and GBR when it comes to fleet race wins and Top 3 finishes: they have 10 of the former, and 24 of the latter.
One of the secrets to their success is that they’ve been the team out there on the water that has best recovered from early-race adversity to still salvage something from the race, with Peter Burling becoming something of a master of the comeback.
Come Sunday, that ability to bounce back from a slow start or an early race penalty could make all the difference.
Can Tom Slingsby do it all over again?
As we know, the BONDS Flying Roos aren’t guaranteed a place in the Grand Final just yet, but they’re as good as there.
Not only would Los Gallos need to put in a strong showing across the six fleet races, but driver Tom Slingsby and his team would have to put in a poor performance of their own; they’d only miss out on the Grand Final if they don’t finish within three places of Los Gallos.
So only that sort of perfect storm can deny them a place in Sunday’s Grand Final.
They’ve won nine fleet races so far this Championship, also securing 22 Top 3 finishes, so again, there hasn’t been much to choose between them and the two teams ahead of them in the standings.
That said, after Slingsby led his team to victory in Auckland in the second event of the season, that’s as good as it got for the Aussies, who failed to win another one after that.
Though they secured a further five places in the event final since Auckland, they’ve failed to capitalise on any of them.
They’re also the team in the poorest form of the three leading contenders. A disappointing seventh-place finish at the Andalucía – Cádiz event was their lowest of the season. Taking Saint-Tropez out of the equation, where a final wasn’t contested, they’ve made just two of the last six finals, so not the greatest of results by their high standards.
Then again, all of these statistics will be confined to the dustbins of SailGP history if Slingsby, a man for the big occasions, comes good on Sunday. Assuming they make the Grand Final, and they really should, Slingsby will feel he’s got every chance.
After all, the 41-year-old guided his team to Championship wins in each of the first three seasons, so he’s no stranger to overall SailGP glory.
Come back tomorrow for our betting preview covering the Mubadala Abu Dhabi Sail Grand Prix event winner market and a look at who can draw first blood in Race 1 on Saturday.
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