Burling delivers Luna Rossa home glory in Cagliari

The sun was out for the final day in Sardinia along with 11 knots of breeze and a sheet of flat water. Three races to round out the first preliminary regatta of the AC38 cycle: races 7 and 8 of the fleet series, and the match race final between the top two.

GB1's AC40 – long nicknamed 'Crispy' for past battery troubles – was back on the water at last, having sat out six of the regatta's first seven races due to a traveller sheave failure on Friday and a hydraulic pump on Saturday. With a single afternoon to show what they had, Dylan Fletcher's crew were out to make some noise.

Up the standings, Luna Rossa's Women & Youth crew sat top of the leaderboard going into the day. The question was whether they could hold their nerve…

With only two fleet races left in Cagliari before the match race final, every team came out hunting points. What nobody expected was that the regatta leaders would be the ones giving them away.

Luna Rossa's Women & Youth crew, the regatta's standouts so far, turned across the line a fraction too early and copped an OCS. From there it spiralled for Marco Gradoni and Margherita Porro – a second penalty for not clearing the first inside a minute, then a third, and eventually disqualification for failing to lose enough metres.

“We had some technical issues because someone said we were across the line, but on our racing software it was okay, and then our racing software froze,” Porro said after. “So we didn't know how much to burn for the penalty, and in the end they disqualified us.”

Up front, GB1 was finally getting some clean racing. Dylan Fletcher's crew rounded mark 1 ahead of Luna Rossa's seniors and France's La Roche-Posay, both six seconds back, then stretched the lead to 19 seconds by leg two. Sister boat Athena Pathway, meanwhile, was stuck at the back of the fleet.

By the third gate, Quentin Delapierre's French had slipped past Peter Burling's Italian senior crew into second – a battle that suited GB1 just fine. Delapierre then controlled Burling all the way down leg four, forcing the Italians to split at the next gate.

GB1 streaked away for their first race win of the regatta, with Fletcher quick to thank "the shore crew for getting the boat back on the water." Behind, Luna Rossa's principal team caught a stronger shift on the final beat and pipped the French to second by just two seconds. With the match race final on the line, Burling's crew sat two points off their regatta-leading sister boat. The two Kiwi boats finished mid-pack, leaving Outteridge's crew just a point ahead of Luna Rossa senior heading into the final fleet race.

Race 7 results
1 GB1 19:20
2 Luna Rossa +0.09
3 La Roche-Posay +0.11
4 ETNZ +0.30
5 ETNZ W & Y +0.30
6 Athena Pathway +0.47
7 Tudor Team Alinghi +1.01
8 Luna Rossa W & Y DSQ

Three boats – both Luna Rossa crews, along with the senior Emirates Team New Zealand squad – went into the final fleet race separated by a single point each, all chasing a seat in the match race final. One was about to seal it, and one would throw it away.

Athena Pathway and Luna Rossa's Women & Youth both copped OCS penalties at the start, with Marco Gradoni and Margherita Porro's hugely ambitious port-tack approach forcing them to do a full restart. By the time they got going the fleet was already 500 metres ahead – and their path into the match race final went with it.

Peter Burling's Italian boat led most of the opening leg, with Quentin Delapierre's La Roche-Posay pushing them hard. The two boats hit the first gate at exactly the same instant before splitting the course. On the next beat Burling tightened his grip, stretching the lead to 12 seconds. Behind, GB1 pushed too hard chasing the French and picked up a boat-on-boat penalty.

By the midway mark, ETNZ’s principal boat sat fifth, Luna Rossa Women & Youth seventh. Outteridge's crew needed to stay two places ahead to deny the Italians a route into the final.

Burling kept it tidy all the way round, crossing the line for his and Luna Rossa's first race win of the regatta. “It feels like we're early days as a group and I'm really proud of the way this team's built throughout the weekend,” he said afterwards. “It's really been the [Italian Women & Youth's] show for the first couple of days, but for us to dig deep and continue to improve through this period has been full credit to this group.”

La Roche-Posay came in 11 seconds back in second, GB1 nicked third from Tudor Team Alinghi by less than a second on the line, and ETNZ senior held fifth to confirm the Kiwi seat in the final. Luna Rossa's Women & Youth came home seventh, a single point short of the cut.

“We've been really focused on making sure we make this race, but I guess the main thing is we're going to remember it's a match race now,” said Outteridge “And Pete's been doing a good job the last few starts of introducing us to match racing again, so can't wait to go and run it at the pre-start.”

Race 8 results
1 Luna Rossa 20:28
2 La Roche-Posay +0.11
3 GB1 +0.35
4 Tudor Team Alinghi +0.35
5 ETNZ +0.43
6 ETNZ W & Y +0.53
7 Luna Rossa W & Y +1:07
8 Athena Pathway +1:29

Standings after fleet racing
1 Luna Rossa 63
2 ETNZ 60
3 Luna Rossa W & Y 59
4 La Roche-Posay 55
5 ETNZ W & Y 50
6 Tudor Team Alinghi 40
7 Athena Pathway 38
8 GB1 27

Teammates in Barcelona, defending the Cup together for AC37, Peter Burling and Nathan Outteridge now stood across from each other to decide the first regatta of AC38.

ETNZ were on the back foot from the gun. Outteridge charged hard for the pin, realised he had too much speed and tried to kill it, dropping the boat off the foils but ran out of runway. Half a second over the line and an OCS penalty.

From there it was textbook match racing from Luna Rossa. Burling built a 130-metre cushion on the first leg, controlling the Kiwi boat at every turn. ETNZ split at the first gate hunting clean air on leg two, but there was little they could do. Luna Rossa held a 15-second margin and a 300-metre lead by the midway point.

The only chink came on the fifth leg, when Luna Rossa briefly splashed down off the foils and the gap shrank to 150 metres. A quick recovery from the crew on the controls and the moment was gone. From there, Burling and Ruggero Tita made life impossible for ETNZ, manoeuvre after manoeuvre, never giving them a chance.

Luna Rossa charged across the line at 40 knots, 33 seconds clear of the Cup defenders.

“We felt like this morning something was clicking, and the whole team did a great job,” said Tita immediately after. “We started pushing really hard from the start and then everything came together.”

On home waters, Burling – never one for big celebrations after race wins – was visibly moved. “We gave ourselves a bit of work to do early in the weekend, we definitely made a few mistakes, but to come out as we did today and really show what we've got and win the first event for Luna Rossa is super pleasing,” he said. “The way Marco and the [Women & Youth crew] have been pushing us on and making life super hard in training has raised the limit for everyone. So an amazing day to represent Italy.”

Across the line, Outteridge offered his own immediate verdict – “Sorry lads, that was a shocker,” caught on team comms – before looking at the bigger picture afterwards. “This is the first part of a long road for the America's Cup for us. I was really impressed with how the team has gelled and the whole support behind the scenes is doing a fantastic job. We did our job and we made the final and we came up a little bit short – but this happened to us last campaign as well. We didn't win the first event and we came back much stronger, so I'm sure we'll regroup and we'll be a lot better for the next event later on this year.”

Final
1 Luna Rossa 19:43
2 ETNZ +0.33

This event belonged to the Italians. Luna Rossa's senior crew sealed it in the most satisfying way possible – in front of a home crowd, on home waters, against Peter Burling's former employers. For Burling himself, after a torrid SailGP season with the Black Foils, this was the kind of result that reminds you why he's a three-time Cup winner. His move to Luna Rossa, very firmly vindicated.

As for GB1, the British crew took a 2-1-3 across the three races they managed to complete. Make of that what you will. Without Crispy's technical issues, this might have been a very different regatta.

And commiserations to Luna Rossa's Women & Youth crew, who set the standard for most of the regatta before bottling their last couple of fleet races. Third overall, a single point off the final, and with the speed and smarts to keep any team in this fleet on their toes. Gradoni and Porro's crew will be one to watch when the AC40s reconvene in Naples for the next preliminary regatta from 24-27 September.