A race win on day one of the SailGP Season 2 finale in San Francisco leaves Denmark SailGP Team presented by ROCKWOOL within touching distance of securing its first overall podium spot at the Mubadala United States Sail Grand Prix.
The team – led by driver Nicolai Sehested and including Olympic bronze medalist Katja Salskov-Iversen – stormed to victory in front of a packed village in front of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge to keep its hopes of securing an event top three alive.
And the result, combined with a fourth and a sixth place in the other two races on the first day of competition in the USA, means that the Danish team sit in fourth place on equal points, and have two more opportunities on Sunday to secure their spot in the top three.
“A race win is always good fun. We haven’t had that many of them yet, but in Season 3 I’m sure you’ll see a lot more coming,” said Sehested.
“It was a challenging day out there, we have the level to win more races, but we make too many silly mistakes – it’s a combination of pressure, inexperience, fatigue, not enough time on the water – but we showed that if you can cut out those mistakes, you win races.”
“Now it’s up to us to show we can be consistent and keep that top level. It would be a fantastic result for us if we can grab that podium spot to finish Season 2 strong and set up Season 3 in style.”
The race win was Salskov-Iversen’s first since joining Denmark SailGP Team alongside Anne-Marie Rindom in April 2021.
“It was a fantastic feeling to win a race,” she said. “It was tricky to get the shifts right – the wind was picking up a lot and dropping. My job onboard was to call the shifts and keep an eye out of the boat for tactics.”
The Danish team debuted grinder Julius Hallström (SWE) who stepped onboard for the first time, becoming the first ever Swede to win a SailGP race.
Fans can tune into TV2 Sport at 2245 CEST on Sunday 27 March to watch the action from Race Day 2 live. Those outside Denmark can head to www.sailgp.com/watch