SailGP: Flawless racing propels NorthStar Canada to top of leaderboard on opening day of San Francisco

Giles Scott’s team looked unflappable, harnessing the 20-30 km/h breeze and mastering the tricky unstable sea state, to pick up impressive 5-1-2-1 race results against the iconic backdrop of San Francisco Bay.

It comes after the Canadians stormed to victory over league heavyweights Australia and New Zealand at last weekend’s event in Los Angeles in its first event win of the season.

Speaking after racing, driver Giles Scott reflected on the team’s performance. “We’ve had a good day today, sailed really clean, pushed it super hard and we’ve been on the right side of a few tricky situations,” he said.

While the fifth place finish in the opening race wasn’t ‘where we always want to start’, Scott described the result as a ‘solid start’ nonetheless.

A key moment for the Canadians unfolded on the approach to the finish line of the fourth fleet race when a minor mistake by race leaders France opened the door to an overtake. NorthStar Canada seized the opportunity, passing France in the final seconds of the race to pick up its second race win of the day.

Speaking from the water, France driver Quentin Delapierre, who finished the day in 4th overall, described the mistake as ‘unfortunate ‘ but complimented NorthStar Canada’s performance.

“There are a lot of meters to gain and lose with the gates and on the last upwind the Canadians did a really good job to close the gap,” he said.

NorthStar Canada’s success was reflected in key racing stats from the day, with the Canadians picking up a stunning 100% fly time.

After the opening day’s first four races, NorthStar Canada takes the top spot with a whopping 35 points, followed by Australia (32) and Spain (29).

From there, there’s a drop off in points, with France in 4th tied on 23 points with New Zealand in 5th.

Starting struggles

Elsewhere, it was a tricky day for race starts, with the fleet struggling to overcome the strong San Francisco current. This resulted in the majority of the fleet piling up at the top of the line in the opening race and early start penalties for France in race two and Germany Deutsche Bank, Mubadala Brazil and home team the United States in race three.

United States nosedives

There was plenty of drama on the San Francisco racecourse, but separate two incidents unstuck the Americans, resulting in the team finishing 11th after four fleet races.

The team experienced two dramatic nosedives in the second and fourth races respectively, with both resulting in the team dropping to 11th place in the blink of an eye.

The second day of San Francisco gets underway on March 23, with racing from 2.30pm PDT.

Text and images courtesy of SailGP.com.