05/24/2026
by James Pacheco
SailGP 2026 Oracle Perth Sail Grand Prix | Full Jan 17-18 Recap | Leading Teams for Upcoming Races in New Zealand
Fans of SailGP had to wait a while in between last year’s final event of the season and the first one of the 2026 season, the Oracle Perth Sail Grand Prix presented by KPMG, but every last one of them would argue that it was well worth the wait.
There were plots and subplots everywhere you looked on the Perth waters, so now that we’ve had a chance to catch our breath, it’s time to summarise and reflect on what happened over the weekend and consider what that means for the Rolex SailGP Championship going forward, including a look at who are the new Championship favorites.
Emirates Great Britain SailGP Team Triumphant in Perth
They say that in sport, staying at the top is harder than getting there in the first place, but Emirates GBR couldn’t have done any more in terms of proving that theory to be untrue.
Priced as the 4.17 joint-favorites alongside the BONDS Flying Roos SailGP Team to win the Perth event, the Brits were fancied by the bookies to carry on from where they left off in the final event of last season, the Mubadala Abu Dhabi Sail Grand Prix 2025 Season Grand Final presented by Abu Dhabi Sports Council, where they secured their first Rolex SailGP Championship win.
And win it they did. But it wasn’t nearly as straightforward as those pre-event odds suggest.
After a relatively slow start to their title defence on Saturday, they weren’t even expected to make the final, let alone win it. Sports betting sites were offering odds of 3.57 that they would book their place in the top three after Saturday’s action and 8.0 that they would go on and win the event.
But readers of our betting preview ahead of Sunday’s action will have been alerted to the threat they posed to go all the way, at generous odds. This is what we said:
“The value, though, may be the Emirates Great Britain SailGP Team. Last year’s winners of the Rolex SailGP Championship are more than twice the price of the Aussies at 8.0 to win the event, despite being tied on points with them after Saturday’s racing.”
Missed opportunity for DS Automobiles SailGP Team France
The favorites to win the final going into Sunday’s racing were DS Automobiles SailGP Team France at 1.81, who, alongside the United States SailGP Team and newcomers Artemis SailGP Team, were leading the standings after the first day’s racing on 31 points.
And after the three teams contesting the final were confirmed after the seven fleet races were done, they were still the 2.63 favorites going into it.
But though they did book their place in the final, as expected, they finished just third in it, with the BONDS Flying Roos securing the runner-up spot and the nine points that come with it.
Artemis SailGP Team Impresses on Debut
The Rolex SailGP Championship is challenging enough for the teams who have competed in previous seasons, and even more so for a team making its debut in the Championship this weekend: Artemis SailGP.
But the Swedes put in a highly impressive performance, winning two races on Saturday and only narrowly missing out on Sunday’s final after finishing fourth, though they’ll see the seven Championship points that come with that finish as a very positive start to life in SailGP.
Brits Overtake Aussies as Championship Favorites
There really wasn’t much in it between the BONDS Flying Roos and Emirates GBR to win the Championship as a whole before racing got underway in Perth: the former priced up at 4.05 and the latter at 4.33.
But the new Championship favorites are the Brits, at 3.7, with the Aussies at 3.85.
After a highly consistent weekend that saw the DS Automobiles SailGP Team France secure five top-three finishes across the seven fleet races, including a win in Race 2, the bookies have taken note of their performance and installed them as the 4.17 third-favorites.
The big market movers, though, are the Swedes. Before Perth, they were a huge price at 90.91 to win the Championship at the first time of asking, but two race wins on Saturday to go with that overall fourth-place finish have forced the odds-compilers to have a serious rethink; they’re now the 8.33 fifth-favorites.
What Happened to the Black Foils SailGP Team in Perth?
Finally, a word on the Black Foils, who had a nightmare start to the Championship, colliding with the Switzerland SailGP Team in Saturday’s opening race to the extent that their F50 was too damaged to allow them to take part in any more racing at Perth for the remainder of the weekend.
The result: not only did they pick up 0 points from the event, but they were hit with a seven-point penalty as a consequence of that collision, meaning they’re -7 for the Championship as a whole.
Not the start that Peter Burling and his team would have hoped for after they went into the season as the 4.41 third-favorites to win this year’s edition of SailGP.
But there’s a long way to go – 12 more events to be precise – and the bookies aren’t taking any chances about a team who has shown time and again that they’re a force to be reckoned with. Despite the disappointment of Perth, they’re still the 7.14 fourth-favorites for Championship glory.