SailGP Team Great Britain

Dylan Fletcher spent three years watching someone else drive his boat. The Olympic gold medallist who helmed Emirates GBR in Season 1 was replaced by Ben Ainslie ahead of Season 2, then spent the next few years coaching, winning a 49er gold in Tokyo and co-helming in the America’s Cup while the F50 he’d started with racked up event wins under someone else’s name.

After Ainslie stepped fully into the CEO role and Giles Scott departed for Team Canada, Fletcher returned at the end of 2024. His comeback brought with it the ultimate vindication: the Season 5 championship, claimed in Abu Dhabi with SailGP's first-ever clean sweep – Grand Final victory, season points title and Impact League crown.

The Brits’ championship run was built on relentless consistency. Podium finishes in Dubai and Auckland, victory in Sydney, strong showings through the European leg despite the Portsmouth heartbreak, then the Abu Dhabi finale where everything aligned. Surrounding Fletcher with Hannah Mills (2x Olympic gold, strategist and future F50 driver in training), Iain Jensen (Olympic champion wing trimmer) and Luke Parkinson (America's Cup flight controller) created the most technically stacked crew on the grid. They executed under pressure, made fewer unforced errors than their rivals, and turned Olympic pedigree into the sport's biggest prize.

Season 6 brings the pressure every champion knows: defending the title. Jensen's departure to Australia opened the door for Stuart Bithell to join as wing trimmer, reuniting the 49er Olympic partnership that delivered gold in Tokyo. The Fletcher-Bithell chemistry is proven, but adapting to the F50's demands while the rest of the fleet studies last season's playbook and hunts for weaknesses is the definition of second-album pressure.

That clean sweep puts Emirates GBR in unfamiliar territory. They’re no longer chasing – they're being chased. Ainslie's Athena Sports Group provides a pipeline of talent and infrastructure few can match, while Fletcher, Mills, Bithell and Parkinson should form one of the grid's most coherent high-performance units. The real question isn't about talent or credentials – it's whether they can execute like champions when the entire fleet is gunning for them.