New Zealand’s second consecutive event win was down to ‘solid starts’ and ‘not making mistakes’, driver Peter Burling has said.
The Kiwi team dominated all three fleet races of the ROCKWOOL Denmark Sail Grand Prix before soaring into the Final and trouncing Denmark and France with a 25 second lead over the finish line.
It marked the Kiwis’ second consecutive win after they triumphed at last month’s Great Britain Sail Grand Prix in Plymouth, proving to critics that their success was more than just a flash in the pan.
Speaking about New Zealand’s faultless performance, Burling said he could count the team’s mistakes ‘on one hand’.
“That’s pretty unusual in our sport, but we’re really happy on the improvements we’ve made and we’re excited for the rest of the season,” he said.
Talking race tactics, Burling said he weighed up both ‘high risk and low risk options’, and ‘it always seemed to pay off’.
Reflecting on the season so far, Burling said the team had been sailing ‘better than the results were showing’. “Usually it was just one bad race letting us down,” he said, “but now we’ve been able to put it together with two solid wins”.
A condensed racing schedule was announced for Saturday, after the first day of racing was called off due to lack of wind. Ben Ainslie’s Great Britain was unable to compete after the team’s F50 suffered significant damage ahead of practice racing.
