SailGP Auckland: Black Foils save best for last to sit fourth after opening day in Auckland

There’s nothing quite like saving your best for last.

On the opening day of SailGP’s debut event in Auckland, the hometown favourites were far from their best across the four races, but with a win in the last contest, they sit fourth – just one point outside of the top three.

The Black Foils finished the first races of the event in fourth, eighth and sixth – doing well to salvage some of those results on a day when they couldn’t find the formula to get off the line at the front of the fleet – before everything clicked in race four.

“The first race we just ended up super late at the start,” Black Foils driver Peter Burling said.

“We kind of thought it was quite a bit windier than it was, and then we just got stuck in a massive lull. It’s something that shouldn’t really happen at this level, but then the next two we just felt like we were overshooting, correcting it both ways - ended up too early in one and paid the price a bit late in the third one.

“I was really pleased with the way the group kept moving forward and absolutely nailed the last one to take a win.”

The starts seemed to be a challenge across the fleet, with Switzerland driver Sebastian Schneiter saying it was tricky to read the conditions at the start after he led his team to a win in race three.

The event got off to a bad opening for the home crew as they ended up wide on their approach to the starting line in race one. It looked as if they were trying to make the risky move of angling in from the side to get over the top of the fleet before hitting the starting line at pace.

If this was the case, they didn’t have the pace to execute it and had to work their way through the fleet.

The Black Foils were again among the last few off the line in races two and three, getting shuffled out the back and becoming stuck in the dirty air of much of the fleet.

They were penalised early in race three for not giving Great Britain enough room at the boundary, but it didn’t seem to impact them much as they were battling among the back half of the fleet.

They clawed back some spots through the last couple of legs, finishing sixth in the day’s penultimate contest.

With good conditions and time to work with, the league decided to run four races, which worked in the Black Foils’ favour.

The hosts finally got the start right, hitting the line at pace and having the speed to get over the top of the Australians and lead at the first mark.

The Black Foils then sailed a lovely race from the front, giving the home fans something to cheer.

While there were four races on day one, there will still be two fleet races and a podium race on day two.

Australia, the day’s most consistent team, topped the leaderboard with two fleet races remaining, ahead of Great Britain and Spain.

Christopher Reive joined the Herald sports team in 2017, bringing the same versatility to his coverage as he does to his sports viewing habits.