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<\/p>\nAhead of the penultimate weekend of the Sail Grand Prix season in Cadiz, Spain, Britain\u2019s driver Dylan Fletcher said: \u201cI don\u2019t think any of the teams feel safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Realistically, only Spain represented serious contenders to trash the plans of one of their rivals hoping to make it to the final event of the season \u2014 the winner-takes-all battle in Abu Dhabi between the overall top three. Australia\u2019s Flying Roos, Britain and New Zealand were in prime position ahead of this weekend, but just six points separated leaders Australia from the fourth-placed Spain.<\/p>\n
And despite a dire start on their own waters, Diego Botin\u2019s Spanish side recovered to only lose a shred of ground in their race to reach the season\u2019s finale.<\/p>\n
The conditions on the Atlantic were testing; the sea was bumpy despite a relative lack of wind. That saw the this season\u2019s big hitters \u2014 Great Britain aside \u2014 struggle in race one of four. The Black Foils, Flying Roos and Spain occupied the bottom four, alongside France, after each suffered poor starts, and the unforgiving nature of being rooted to the back quickly became evident.<\/p>\n
Australia driver Tom Slingsby remarked that those further back were contending with \u201cso much bad air\u201d throughout the afternoon. New Zealand and Australia could not make up any real ground in the opening round, but were saved by a disastrous showing from the hosts, who were stuck in last and still struggled to stay inside the boundary.<\/p>\n
It was the second race in which Saturday\u2019s key performers, Denmark, really began to shine.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n Denmark won two of four races on the Atlantic (Ricardo Pinto\/SailGP)<\/p>\n
Nicolai Sehested\u2019s team found the gap to make a perfect start and followed up with a tight first maneuver. From here, Denmark maintained a good pace from the front to run home their first of two race victories. New Zealand and Britain, finishing second and fifth respectively, kept their points tallies ticking. Spain, meanwhile, recovered from their early disaster for third.<\/p>\n
Australia, meanwhile, were still languishing. On-board microphones picked up an uncharacteristically unassured Slingsby, amid the chaotic field saying: \u201cI don\u2019t know where to go.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Flying Roos were 11th, bettering the USA, who looked a far cry from the F50 which took third in the opening race.<\/p>\n
New Zealand\u2019s Black Foils averted disaster in the third race when \u2014 after finally gaining a strong start with a sprint lead \u2014 they were rocked off their foils by the battering waves at the first leg. They slipped down to seventh, only recovering a single position by the finish line.<\/p>\n
Australia managed to shake off their early struggles to win the third, 21 seconds ahead of Denmark, who were proving the most consistent in the face of the tricky conditions, which were intensified by the dramatic cut in wind speed as the afternoon wore on. There was another fifth-placed finish for Britain, enjoying a relatively drama-free day compared to those around them.<\/p>\n
Denmark saw through their terrific day in Cadiz by taking victory in the fourth and final race of the day. While their early-season form has put paid to any hopes of making the trip to Abu Dhabi on November 29-30, Saturday\u2019s celebrations will not be that of a team disappointed at falling short.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s always good to carry momentum, but the amount of times we destroyed a super Sunday is probably not worth mentioning,\u201d Sehested said on the live coverage, broadcast on TNT Sports in the UK.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ahead of the penultimate weekend of the Sail Grand Prix season in Cadiz, Spain, Britain\u2019s driver Dylan Fletcher…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474108,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5018,3,4],"tags":[748,393,6869,4884,1144,14995,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-474107","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-britain","8":"category-uk","9":"category-united-kingdom","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-global-sports","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-northern-ireland","15":"tag-sailing","16":"tag-scotland","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115317257981461207","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474107\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}