Phil Robertson has unpacked the moment he steered the Canada F50 into a finish line mark, resulting in the team picking up an eight point event penalty.
The incident occurred in San Francisco’s second fleet race, when both the Danish and Canadians were coming up to the finish line behind France and New Zealand.
Canada pushed the Danish out wide, forcing Nicolai Sehested’s team to miss the finish line. But then driver Robertson dramatically steered the F50 straight into the finish mark in a desperate last ditch effort to cross the line.
The team was initially handed a four point event penalty/ two point season penalty, but this was later upgraded to an eight point event penalty/ four point season penalty when damage to the team's F50 was found to be worse than originally thought.
Reflecting on the incident, Robertson said it was a ‘tough’ situation, with the team struggling to see the finish mark.
“There were two boats slow in front of us - we had the Danes outside of us and we made the call to go around the outside,” Robertson said. He added that ‘rules wise’, it was ‘the only thing we could do’.
By the time the team spotted the exact location of the finish mark it was, Robertson said, ‘way too late’, claiming the mark was ‘in a different position’ to the race before.
“It was a bit of a tricky station that we’re going to have to have a look at and have a chat with the race committee and see what we should be doing with those finish lines in the future because they’ve caused a few issues recently,” he said.
It comes after Australia dramatically collided with a finish mark in Christchurch, causing significant damage to their F50 and earning a devastating 12 point event penalty.
