New Emirates GBR driver Giles Scott has admitted the team is ‘disappointed’ with its current ranking on the Season 4 leaderboard but ‘never thought’ taking over from Ben Ainslie was ‘going to be easy’.
Emirates GBR is currently ranked 6th heading into this weekend’s event in Christchurch, but remains tied on 45 points with France and the United States. This puts them within seven points of ROCKWOOL DEN in third.
Scott took over from Ainslie in Dubai, a light air event followed by similar conditions in Abu Dhabi. As a result, Scott said Sydney - the first fully foiling event of Season 4 - ‘felt like [his][ first proper SailGP event”.
In Australia, the team picked up a 9-6-7-6-5 race record - and struggled to start well - to finish the event in 7th overall.
“Our starting, particularly on Saturday, was below par,” Scott admitted, “but I feel like I’m serving a little bit of an apprenticeship."
He added that his is attempting to ‘fast track’ his learnings on board, but this remains a challenge due to limited training time. Getting the team ‘where it deserves to be’ is ‘not too far away’ and requires ‘a lot of small’ improvements, he said.
“I never thought it would be easy,” he admitted. “We all want to win and I’m not different - I’m reasonably chilled out off the water, but I’ve got a competitive spark somewhere - hopefully things will change and we can start turning some heads.”
The ITM New Zealand Sail Grand Prix | Christchurch takes place on March 23-24, with racing from 15:00 NZDT.
