Australia repeats as SailGP Champions

San Francisco, CA (March 27, 2022) – The second season of SailGP came to a climax at the 2022 Mubadala United States Sail Grand Prix as Australia won the winner-take-all final race to claim the title and the $1 million prize purse.

The format for the San Francisco event was adjusted to both recognize the event winner alongside the season champion. Five fleet races determined the San Francisco event results, with that ranking then included in the season scoring to advance the top three teams for the title determining finale.

Season 1 champion Tom Slingsby’s Australia team and Jimmy Spithill’s United States SailGP Team arrived in San Francisco having accrued enough points for the final, with Nathan Outteridge’s Japan team claiming the last ticket after leading through yesterday’s three fleet races.

While San Francisco westerly winds off the ocean are reliable during the summer, hosting the event in March can be risky and that was the case today as a more southerly direction off the land delivered variable conditions in both strength and direction.

All eight teams completed the final two fleet races, in which Slingsby’s team won the San Francisco title before the top three teams in the season rankings – Australia, USA, and Japan – took over the stage to claim the 8-event championship title.

But an incident in the fourth fleet race damaged the USA boat as Spain took unearned room at the first leeward mark, damaging the American’s stern and knocking them out of the final fleet race. Drastic repairs got the U.S. Team ready for the title race, but uncertain if any issues would remain for boat performance.

The test would soon come, and while the USA held the lead through the first offwind leg, they would drop to last when the teams turned upwind, with the race getting abandoned due to a whale on the course. Soon thereafter, the wind dropped to just a few knots, causing further delay.

Winds remained light for the do-over, with only Australia popping off the start line with speed. Their lead quickly became significant, but dropping off their foils at the first upwind mark offered an opportunity for the USA.

However, that was soon lost as the home team misplayed their approach, getting passed by Japan while Australia regained their mojo to finish with a lead of over 600m on Japan and nearly 1900m on USA.

“More important than the money is that Australia came out on top and we can call ourselves the best in the world,” said Slingsby. “Money comes and goes and glory lasts forever, I know that’s a saying, but we really feel it right now.”

San Francisco Results
1. Australia, Tom Slingsby, 2-4-3-2-1, 33
2. Great Britain, Ben Ainslie, 1-6-4-3-2, 29
3. Japan, Nathan Outteridge, 6-2-1-6-4, 26
4. Denmark, Nicolai Sehested, 4-1-6-7-5, 22
5. New Zealand, Peter Burling, 3-5-8-1-3*, 21
6. United States, Jimmy Spithill, 5-7-5-5-DNC, 14
7. France, Quentin Delapierre, 7-8-7-4-6, 13
8. Spain, Jordi Xammar, 8-3-2-DNF-DNC, 9
* Four penalty points added due to foul with France

Final Results – SailGP Season 2 Championship (8 events)
1. Australia, Tom Slingsby, 85
2. Japan, Nathan Outteridge, 77
3. United States, Jimmy Spithill, 74
4. Great Britain, Ben Ainslie (alternate – Paul Goodison), 50
5. New Zealand, Peter Burling (alternate – Arnaud Psarofaghis), 47
6. Denmark, Nicolai Sehested, 45
7. Spain, Jordi Xammar (alternate – Phil Robertson), 43
8. France, Quentin Delapierre, 39

SailGP information – San Francisco details – Crew lists

How to watch – Results – Noticeboard – SailGP Insights

Format for SailGP events:
• Teams compete in identical F50 catamarans.
• Each event runs across two days.
• There are three races on each day, totaling six races at each event.
• The opening five fleet races involve every team.
• Race scoring provides 8 points for first, 7 points for second, etc.
• The final race in each event pits the three highest ranking teams against each other to be crowned event champion.
• The season ends with the Grand Final, which includes the Championship Final Race for the top three teams from the season ranking for a winner-takes-all match race for the $1m prize.

SailGP Season 2 Schedule
April 24-25, 2021 – Bermuda Grand Prix
June 5-6, 2021 – Italy Grand Prix – Taranto
July 17-18, 2021 – Great Britain Grand Prix – Plymouth
August 20-21, 2021 – ROCKWOOL Denmark Grand Prix – Aarhus
September 11-12, 2021 – France Grand Prix – Saint-Tropez
October 9-10, 2021 – Spain Grand Prix – Andalusia
December 17-18, 2021 – Australia Grand Prix – Sydney
January 29-30, 2022 – New Zealand Grand Prix – Christchurch (CANCELLED)
March 26-27, 2022 – United States Grand Prix – San Francisco (Season 2 Grand Final)

Established in 2018, SailGP seeks to be an annual, global sports league featuring fan-centric inshore racing in some of the iconic harbors around the globe. Rival national teams compete in identical F50 catamarans with the season culminating with a $1 million winner-takes-all race.