Alinghi Red Bull Racing through to Louis Vuitton Cup Semi-Finals

On the final day of the Louis Vuitton Cup Round Robin, the Swiss Challenger knew they were through to the Semi-Final before their match happened, as Orient Express Racing Team lost their match to INEOS Britannia. Already through on points, the Swiss team were ready for their match against Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, but the Italians faced an issue with their foils and were disqualified for being outside the boundary at the pre-start. The Swiss just had to cross the start line to win the point, with the team’s sailing manager Rodney Ardern commenting after: “We’re not sure about the race, but we like the result.”

Now the team is looking ahead to Friday when the overall winner of the Round Robin, Challenger of Record INEOS Britannia, selects their opponent for the Semi-Finals. The next days will be used to make key upgrades to BoatOne and get in some training before the round kicks off on Saturday 14th September.

Arnaud Psarofaghis, Skipper: “We’re feeling happy today because now we can start the real work. It’s always good to go through one stage, but the next is going to be tougher. We have a good idea of what we want to improve on the boat, as well as the way we want to sail it. Now we have an opportunity to implement things we couldn’t during the two Round Robins. We have plenty to do on the boat that you guys will see the next time it comes out of the shed. Every little detail can be worked on, both above and below the water, and even inside the boat.

We don’t know yet which team we’re going to face in the next round, but for us it doesn’t really matter. The goal will be to go out there, learn, and win every race that we can to reach the Louis Vuitton Cup Final.”

Maxime Bachelin, Helmsman: “I’m glad we can keep sailing in this amazing boat and continue this adventure. We would have fought hard with the Italians, so it was a bit sad that they weren’t able to sail against us. There’s some relief today, but in the end, there’s not a lot of time off for resting or celebration. We’ll just be straight on to the next one.

Looking back at the Round Robin, we learned a lot. We saw where we can improve, probably mostly on boat speed. We're performing a bit less well than during training, so we're just trying to get that speed back up to be competitive against the others. Let’s see who we’ll be facing in the Semi-Finals, as this will also have a big impact on our preparations.”

Silvio Arrivabene, Co-General Manager: “The Round Robin was a really big rollercoaster ride, and that's often the case in match racing regattas, unlike fleet racing. It’s just about getting to the next stage. The Round Robin spanned two weeks, and a lot of things happened, with different wind conditions and all the boats having issues. Today we were ready to fight and were hoping to get a good race with Luna Rossa. But at the end of the day, we're through, and now we have a couple of days to rest on the one hand, and on the other, we can study, gather all the input, and then come back ready for the Semi-Finals.”