Day 1 Spain SailGP: Los Gallos and Flying Roos lead the way, but light air teams lurking

After Saturday's racing in Valencia, Australia were solid as a rock, and in the other group, Los Gallos wowed the home crowd with the most dominant performance of the day. So, business as usual for those two high-flying teams.

Standings after Day 1:

But there were some surprise packages on the Valencia race course on Saturday, though maybe we shouldn't be so surprised at seeing some really good performances by Denmark and Italy – first and second in Abu Dhabi last November.

The Foil spoke to Nicolai Sehested after racing, and he was feeling understandably buoyant about the day, scoring results of 3,2,1 across the afternoon of tricky, marginal foiling.

"I think it's definitely a sign of good things to come," said Sehested. "We knew after yesterday's practice and also first days that we're actually quite slippery now in this stuff, in the light stuff. Good manoeuvres, good boat speed. We all know you look like a great tactician when you're fast and slippery. Today, it's credit to the team. Great boat speed, great manoeuvres, and that's nice to get that in this light stuff because we might have light stuff until February."

One of the most thrilling moments of the afternoon was a photo finish between Spain, who had led most of Race 2 Group B comfortably, only to be caught up by Denmark near the finish. Spain's strategist Nicole van der Velden described that tense moment on board the Spanish boat: "That was a tough one because they managed to get around foiling a bit more than we thought they would, especially when they were coming back. The only thing we could do there is try to sail the boat as well as we could. We knew we would meet them at the mark, and it would be about who would pop and accelerate as well as possible to the finish line. We focused all efforts on trying to do that as best as we could. That was a good team push."

Denmark finally got the better of Los Gallos in the last race of the day when Sehested dominated from start to finish. And in the seven boats of Group A, Italy got to enjoy that winning moment twice, winning Races 1 and 3. We don't need to mention that they were last in Race 2.

Like Rockwool Denmark, we haven't seen much from the Italians so far this season, but I asked Red Bull Italy's strategist Jana Germani if today's Valencian conditions felt a bit like Abu Dhabi last November. "Definitely," she said. "It's a bit warmer even maybe here, but it felt similar. Light wind, big winds, and all part of being on the foils and trying to keep the boat flying."

Phil Robertson added: "It's definitely a condition we quite like when it's down range, down crew, scrambling a bit more, and trying to figure out how to handle this boat with a lot less people on board. It's definitely a little bit of our strength as a team in these conditions. Now we've definitely turned the breeze into a lot more of a strength as well. Hopefully, we can keep the whole package together and moving forward as we expect." Asked how he felt about potentially being on the 27.5-metre wing for the rest of the season, Robertson said: "It's lightening off now. This event, Geneva is notoriously light, and then the Middle East is also a light air venue. Expecting to be big wings or foiling and down on crew. It's definitely a welcome change from the breeze we've had for most of the season."

'Welcome change' – that's a telling phrase you're unlikely to hear from the Australians, who pride themselves on being able to take whatever conditions come their way. That said, Bonds Flying Roos strategist Tash Bryant said it felt hectic with two crew off the boat in lighter breeze. "Four-up is definitely getting busier," she said. "We really missed Sammy in the last couple of races today, but we've had some good practice this week and getting everything dialled in. It went pretty well for us."

Which is just as well, because today is also Tom Slingsby's birthday. No doubt in Tom's mind what his best present has been from the day: "Winning a race, for sure. Spending your birthday with all your friends and family and everything, it's been amazing. I've copped it a bit with a few mean pranks and stuff like that. One of them, I did a scratchy and it came out that I won a million dollars, and everyone around played in and said, 'Mate, it's legit.' I didn't want to believe it, but I started believing it, and then I got told it was a prank. I was like, 'Okay, well, that's not very nice.' Going out there and sailing with my friends, that's amazing."

For every good news story in sport, there has to be a bad news story, and one that no one saw coming was to find the Black Foils out of the day seventh and last in Group A. Pete Burling explained: "We definitely haven't done much racing in the proper bottom-end conditions. It's a condition we really enjoy as a group. We feel it's one of our strengths in that light air. Today, with that tricky start box with the back right up against the wall, we didn't quite manage to take the right options. We found it super hard in the second race with the really late addition of time. We were about a minute 30 to start and a minute got added. We struggled to get back into a position. At that last start, I'm amazed Artemis wasn't black-flagged at the top. We really killed our acceleration to not put them over a mark. It was a strange decision."

So we had to ask Nathan Outteridge how he read that very same situation. "The last race, we got boxed down at the start. I'm not sure how close it got with the Kiwis there, but we were waiting." Told that Pete says it was very close, Outteridge continued: "We were waiting for them to go, and they appeared to want to take us out and not go when the rest of the fleet went. I was on the other side of the boat trying to make sure we didn't hit them, waiting for them to bear away. Blair's already had some words to me. I can't make comment till I look at it back on the umpire app. Once we did get going, it was a good effort by our team to get back out into that race." And on Burling's suggestion he'd got a free pass on a black flag? "Pete can think what he thinks."

If that was an incident where Artemis should have copped a penalty, the Swedish had already suffered their own bad fortune earlier in the day, when gear failure meant they were unable to start the first race of Group A on time. "The soft shackle that joins the top of the jib to the strop failed," Outteridge said. "This is a supplied part, and when we inspected it when it came down, it looked like the knot in the end of it came undone. It's quite disappointing when you spend all this time and money and training to come to these events, and a very simple part like that supplied by the event prevents you from racing. What I'm more disappointed about is the rae management could have leapfrogged the races, put the other group back on for another race, got our fix, and we could have done three races today. It'll be interesting to see why they wouldn't do that. One of the benefits of being in split fleets is you could let a boat get repairs while the other fleet races, and the show goes on. Pretty disappointed in that one."

Outteridge wasn't the only one looking to have words with race management. Phil Robertson might have finished last in Race 2 of Group A, but he said some of the damage was done even before the Italian boat crossed the start line. "We got pretty stitched up in that start. I'm a bit disappointed in the race management and how they conducted that second start for both fleets. They changed the timing as everyone was approaching their entry, and then they added another minute. It throws you completely out of position. We ended up in the worst position possible, and I think we were probably 20 seconds late for the gun in the end. We could have managed it better, but it's disappointing to have a change so late when they can foresee that." Asked if he'd had a frank discussion with race management, Robertson said: "For sure. We'll give them a lot of feedback on that. Hopefully, it doesn't happen again. It's happened in the past, but it's not very common. In this light air, the dirt is so big to try and get back out of the gas and into clean air again when you're down below the pack, and the entry is really tough."

So on Saturday we've seen some of the usual suspects at the front, along with a few faces that haven't featured near the front of the pack for a while. One thing we haven't yet seen is any team take a home win in 2026. The Spanish are on fire. Perhaps Diego Botín and Los Gallos can break the trend and use the roar of the home crowd to see them first across the finish line on Sunday afternoon.