Samba time for Flying Roos as Australia dominate in Rio

The Bonds Flying Roos completed a remarkable clean sweep in the Rio Grand Prix on Sunday, as Tom Slingsby’s crew won all three fleet races and the three-boat final for their second SailGP victory of 2026.

Overnight leader despite not winning a race on Saturday, the Australian F50 proved unbeatable from the opening race on Sunday afternoon. They were joined in the final by Artemis Sweden and Spain’s Los Gallos, but led all the way to add to their Auckland victory.

The result lifts them into the championship lead, seven points clear of Emirates Great Britain after a disastrous weekend for Dylan Fletcher and his crew. The British boat finished well adrift of the rest of the fleet in Brazil, in a distant last place.

Sunday on Guanabara Bay greeted the 12-strong fleet with ten to 17 knots of wind. A significant handful on the F50s equipped with the light air package of a 27.5m wing, large jibs and light air T foils. The only respite being a late change to the high-wind rudder T foils.

With five-up crew configurations, teams had to choose whether to have their fifth member in the strategist or G1 (first grinder) position.

Both were good options. The changeable winds around Sugarloaf Mountain favoured keeping eyes out of the boat as a strategist, whereas being at the top end of the sail configuration wind-window could see benefits in having the fifth member in the G1 position.

Slingsby showed his team meant business at the first point of asking. Despite being later to the start than most, by a few seconds, the Roos foiled straight through to take a strong lead into mark one followed by Sweden and Italy.

Italy, running their fifth member in G1, stayed well in touch and briefly snatched the lead from the Aussies after the overnight leaders sailed themselves into a hole at the top of the course under Sugarloaf.

Despite the brief exchange of lead, the 2023 season champions powered on to win Sunday’s opening race. A strong start for Australia.

“Yeah, really tough race track, and we’re probably in the wrong configuration today,” said Slingsby. “We’ve got the big wing on and the boat is quite hard to keep control.

“With the top marks right under Sugarloaf Mountain, it’s making it really challenging, as I’m sure you can see. Everyone is just battling away.”

With talk on the broadcast commentary of damage in a starting incident between Australia and Switzerland, it put the Flying Roos in jeopardy with the threat of possible penalty points looming.

With the on-water penalty served, and Slingsby apologetically taking ownership on the comms soon after, Australia reset well and went on to win the race ahead of Los Gallos after a punchy match racing move pushed the Spaniards off the foil and forced a penalty on leg five.

Upon reviewing the onboards during the incident, there does look to have been contact – likely between the starboard foil of Australia and the port foil of the Swiss. Will we see any penalty or licence points dished out to the Australians? Or have they gotten away with it?

It’s not the first time that Slingsby and Sébastien Schneiter have clashed. The pair had a controversial penalty incident in race four, but have also had disagreements in the past. Notably, ahead of the Australian event in 2024, Schneiter hit back at comments made by Slingsby about the Swiss driver’s approach to racing on SailGP's ‘Racing on the Edge’ show.

Also at the start, the upset of Emirates Great Britain’s poor form looked to have been softened. The Brits had a glimmer of glory as they came through the fleet on foil, the rest slow in the water. However, a harsh penalty against Italy dropped them back, leading to another bottom three result for the reigning season champions.

With Australia on form and Artemis close behind, the spots for them in the final were more or less secured. The third spot was all to play in a shoot-out between Diego Botin’s Spanish team and Taylor Canfield’s USA.

As Schneiter’s Swiss team nailed the start and led to mark one, the race between Spain and the Americans looked to be over before it even started. The Sydney winners foiled around mark one, leaving Spain crawling around the mark, struggling to raise their boat up onto the foil.

A black flag disqualification of France from the umpires was the only thing preventing Botin’s team from being in last position.

Crucially, an opportunity opened up for the newly-bought Los Gallos. The team chose to split at the upwind gate to sail a longer distance, but more importantly, avoid the traffic jam that gobbled up Canfield. Making the move placed Spain in the team’s third consecutive final. 

“It’s really tough to control the boats on a day like today, super shifty,” said Botin.

“Joan (Cardona) made a great call on going right because the left gate was with a lot of traffic and there was a good puff. We made the pass.”

Eyeing the first SailGP win in South American waters, Australia, Sweden and Spain lined up for the winner takes all battle.

Nathan Outteridge’s Artemis, in their first final as a newly fledged team for 2026, split their strategy early from the others in the starting box. A clear sign of intent, but not enough to overthrow Slingsby’s in-form team. The two teams started with pinpoint accuracy on the line, while Spain went for a safer option a few seconds back.

Artemis kept the engines burning and were hot on the heels of the leaders, waiting to pounce at any opportunity. The Swedes showed even more promise by briefly taking the lead before the team’s hopes dwindled after coming off the foil and infringing Los Gallos at gate three.

The penalty against Outteridge provided a welcome buffer to Australia as driver Slingsby was thanking his lucky cats as the team crossed the finish line to secure a perfect Sunday scoreline and hole out in Rio.

After a challenging day on the F50s, Australia rack up a second event win of season six to put them seven points clear of closest championship rivals, Great Britain.

As far as the biggest upset goes, bar a sixth-place finish in race two, Fletcher’s team failed to log a result outside of the bottom three. A result that seems uncharacteristic given their recent form and one that will sting, at least until the next round in Bermuda.

The next round travels to the Great Sound and takes place on May 10-11 before the league finishes its stint in The Americas and surrounding territories in New York and Halifax.

Race 5
1 Australia
2 Italy
3 Sweden
4 Spain
5 USA
6 Switzerland
7 France
8 Denmark
9 Brazil
10 Canada
11 Germany
12 Great Britain 

Race 6
1 Australia
2 Spain
3 Denmark
4 Sweden
5 France
6 Canada
7 Brazil
8 USA
9 Germany
10 Great Britain
11 Switzerland
12 Italy

Race 7
1 Australia
2 Germany
3 Sweden
4 Spain
5 Switzerland
6 Denmark
7 USA
8 Brazil
9 Italy
10 Great Britain
11 Canada
DSQ France

Final
1 Australia
2 Spain
3 Sweden

Rio Grand Prix finishing order
1 Australia
2 Spain
3 Sweden
4 USA
5 Denmark
6 Germany
7 Italy
8 France
9 Brazil
10 Canada
11 Switzerland
12 Great Britain

Championship Standings after Rio
1 Australia 35
2 Great Britain 28
3 USA 27
4 Spain 25
5 Sweden 23
6 France 23
7 Denmark 17
8 Germany 15
9 Italy 15
10 Brazil 7
11 Canada 7
12 New Zealand 2
13 Switzerland 1