Ruggero Tita on taking the driver's seat of Red Bull Italy

It’s been a busy three years for Ruggero Tita. After picking up Olympic gold at the Tokyo 2020 (2021) Olympics with Caterina Banti, Tita and Banti set their sights on repeating the achievement at the 2024 Olympics in Paris (they were crowned Olympic champions for the second time).

Alongside the Olympic campaign, Tita was head down preparing for the 37th America’s Cup with Italy’s entry - Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, which saw him listed on the helmsman roster. He split his summer between Barcelona for the Cup and Marseille for the Olympics. As if that wasn’t enough, Tita has been working hard all the while on a third project - the launch of the Red Bull Italy SailGP Team.

Tita has been a SailGP fan since the beginning - “I never miss a SailGP weekend’ - and was spotted watching from the water’s edge at Season 4’s event in Taranto in Italy. He started ‘working on an Italian project a long time ago’ and had ‘good interest’ in launching the team, but ‘lacked credibility’ when it came to getting the project off the ground.

Enter Jimmy Spithill. A legend of SailGP, Spithill drove the United States team to multiple event wins across multiple seasons and a Championship podium in Season 2. Following the U.S.’s sale in Season 4, Spithill announced he was leaving the team to set up an Italian entry and joined forces with Tita to get the project up and running. “When Jimmy took on the project as leader, it was amazing for us as an Italian group - of course we were looking for sponsors, but lacking a bit of credibility - Jimmy coming in as leader for sure helped us a lot,” Tita says.

A veteran of Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, Spithill has spoken frequently about ‘just how much talent is coming through [Italy]’. Spithill began by recruiting Tita as driver, and together the pair set about assembling the rest of the team. Many are Luna Rossa alumni - flight controller Andrea Tesei and grinders Matteo Celon and Enrico Voltolini were all involved in the latest Cup campaign, while strategist Giulia Fava won the first ever Women’s Americas Cup with Luna Rossa’s female team.

But when it came to the wing trimmer position, ‘Jimmy was convinced we needed an expert’, Tita says, ‘to teach us and help us pick up the peculiarities of the boat quickly’. Here, Spithill performed another feat - luring Kyle Langford from triple SailGP champion Australia to the Italian camp. This signing is already paying off, Tita says, describing Langford as ‘a big help’ in training. Spithill has also recruited Philippe Presti, who worked with him as coach to the United States SailGP Team when Spithill was driver. The result, Tita says, is an Italian crew ‘surrounded by a professional team’. “Jimmy, Kyle and Philippe have been in these boats for such a long time and know every single detail, so it’s fantastic that we can learn from them,” he says.

Heading into this weekend’s season opener in Dubai, the fledgling team has had an extended training run up. On the one hand, Tita says, Dubai is ‘a great venue for new teams’ with ‘safe and light conditions’. But light conditions can be all the more ‘challenging’ as the team tries to master ‘the crossover between foiling and not foiling’.

“It’s not always easy to keep the boat on the foils, but of course it’s part of the learning process’. Training days include two to four hours of on-water training time, bookended with briefings and analysis of video replays and past racing data. “It is very hard to be able to stay focused for so long and not miss a single detail,” Tita says. Learning the F50 in Dubai’s light conditions will also present challenges when the league moves to the heavier wind venues of Auckland, Sydney and San Francisco. “Every day [in Dubai] is similar - there are only a small range of conditions, so we will need some hours and days of foiling in stronger winds’.

Looking ahead, Tita says it’s ‘hard’ for the team to set a clear performance expectation for the first few events of the season. The ‘level of the league is extremely high’, Tita says and Red Bull Italy will not be the only team having its racing debut in Dubai. Mubadala Brazil, driven by fellow two-time Olympic champion Martine Grael, will take to the racecourse for the first time too. The Brazilians, Tita says, ‘are coming in at a very high level’ with ‘so many SailGP experts on board’. “They will be very tough and challenging to sail against, but of course it’s part of our learning process.” For now, the team is staying ‘realistic’. “We see a very steep hill, but I’m sure with time we’ll have a chance to show why we’re here,” he says.

But for Tita personally it’s ‘absolutely fantastic’ having Spithill, an experienced driver and CEO, at his side. The process of entering the league and preparing for racing has allowed Tita to ‘discover a new Jimmy’. “I’ve known him for a long time, but seeing him in the coach booth, being so proactive and giving us input and opinions and showing us shortcuts in learning the boat is amazing,” he says. “Having him jump on the boat and show us what he means - it’s something that’s very rare and I really appreciate it - it means a lot.”