ROCKWOOL Racing, Mubadala Brazil, and Red Bull Italy lead the event tally following the initial four fleet races of the Mubadala Abu Dhabi Sail Grand Prix Season 2025 presentation, in partnership with Abu Dhabi Sports Council.
Today, championship leaders had a disappointing day, as not enough to upset the chances of tomorrow’s Grand Final. The end of the day is likely to witness Emirates GBR, Australia, and Spain finish on the Arabian Gulf in the 10th, 11th, and 12th positions, respectively. In the second overall season standings, Black Foils of Peter Burling was slightly better, in eighth.
The new 27.5-meter wingsail of the fleet was first used in all the teams, and it was accompanied by the light-air foils and rudders to make the 7-10 km/h breeze.
Eventually, the most experienced crews were grappling in crowded conditions on one of the tightest racetracks on the calendar. BONDS Flying Roos and Diego Botin’s Los Gallos of Tom Slingsby were charged two penalties each on-course side (early start).
The SailGP umpires imposed a total of 27 penalties throughout the day, including an expensive penalty to the Swiss (8 points) for causing damage to the New Zealand F50 in fleet race four.
Slingsby said, “We received two early start penalties today – it’s frustrating, but I saw a lot of teams getting penalties, so maybe everyone is having similar issues.”
Although the performance of the BONDS Flying Roos was not typical of the three-time Rolex SailGP Champions, the crew miraculously remained one step ahead of Spain, ensuring their lead in the pursuit of tomorrow’s Grand Final race.
Slingsby stated that “We are trying to control the situation as best we can, we are in a better position than we were at the start of the day. It doesn’t look like that when you are in 10th overall, but as long as Spain is behind us – we are happy.”
Looking back at the day he simply did not need, Spain SailGP Team driver Diego Botín added that “It was a very light and tough day – the starts get a lot of waiting in these conditions, and we pushed for it, and it made us make a few mistakes. We will keep pushing tomorrow even though things aren’t super hopeful for us.”
Emirates GBR’s Dylan Fletcher, who leads the overall fleet, reported that “There’s a lot happening with a condensed racetrack and the fleet arriving at similar times, so it gets busy fast – we saw some tight mark roundings and plenty of place changes on that final leg. I think it’ll be completely different in the Grand Final with only three boats. There’s obviously a lot more wind on the racecourse, and it’ll be a very different game.”
As the leading teams faltered, new crews on the ascendancy appeared, keeping alive the hope that Abu Dhabi would be able to deliver another event first-time winner.
ROCKWOOL Racing was also the team of the day, and they made it to the podium in every one of the four fleet races (two wins, a second, and a third).
The Danish team has 37 points in the leaderboard of the event, and they have enough buffer over Mubadala Brazil and Red Bull Italy, who are on the same level at 22 points each.
ROCKWOOL Racing driver Nicolai Sehested reported that “I think it was sort of the first time where we were fast in the light stuff – H1 and H2 – needing a different way to make decisions because we are sailing away, as normally, we have to get the elbows out in the light stuff. It came a lot easier than normal, you have to sail fast to not have to deal with the other boats today – normally in the heavy winds we can do that, but good to see we are starting to do that in the light wind.”
The comeback of Phil Robertson witnessed a sequence of mid-fleet performances by the Red Bull Italy, which were left standing at third place at the event headline because of the Swiss penalty that moved the crew of Shneider to fourth position.
Highlighting his F50 return, Roberston added that “I guess for the first day coming back it’s a nice way to ease into it. It’s pretty horrible out there – especially the starts – there are a lot of boats and obviously very close, but it was alright. A good day and a lot of fun to be out there again.”
However, all the 12 international teams will strike the water again tomorrow with two more qualifying fleet races after which an event winner will be declared, overall season points will have been counted, and the top three teams will progress to the winner-takes-all Grand Final race. Three can compete, but only one will be the winner of the 2025 Season Rolex SailGP Champion.
US $3.2 million will be on the line over the weekend -$800K to the winners of the event (split among the podium), $400K to the best placed team in the standings, and $2 million to the overall winner, the Rolex SailGP Champions of the season.
