Spain driver Diego Botin has reflected on the team’s stunning Season 4 start and revealed why he refuses to set specific event finishing targets ahead of this weekend’s Spain Sail Grand Prix | Andalucía-Cádiz.
Spain currently sits in third overall tied on points with Emirates Great Britain after picking up two podium positions in LA and Saint-Tropez. This uptick in performance followed a disappointing Season 3, which saw the team finish bottom of the leaderboard in 9th. Botin admits the team’s drastic turnaround surprised even him when Season 4 got underway.
The first four events, he says, have gone ‘super well’ but ‘we didn’t expect this beginning to the season’. He reveals the team is working hard between events ‘to close the gap to the more experienced teams and consolidate ourselves in the top half of the fleet’.
Other teams might aim to do this by targeting particular finishing positions or points, but Botin won’t be drawn on specifics.
“Making a podium in front of a home crowd would be epic’, he says ‘but it’s a very hard thing to do”. It’s not about finishing in ‘a specific position’, he argues, but more about ‘how we sail, how we apply our learnings and that feeling of being better which will result in better results throughout the season - it’s about that, not a position’.
Botin’s determination to remain realistic is key to the entire ‘mindset of the team’. “We are kind of a new team - we have less experience than the others and these are delicate things,” he explains. “If you think you’re too good, too early when you’re not, it can destroy your mindset and results - it’s super important to keep it real.”
Read the full interview on The Dock.
The F50 fleet will reconvene at the Spain Sail Grand Prix | Andalucía-Cádiz on October 14-15.
