America’s Cup, Ben Ainslie won’t go for it: English masterpiece, it’s 4-2

Change the tide on the Barcelona race course and the inertia of the America’s Cup final also changes, with Ineos Britannia stringing together a perfect day by surprisingly bringing home two wins against the hitherto perfect New Zealanders. The score now stands at 4-2 in favor of Team New Zealand; it’s back on the water on Friday.

Ben Ainslie and Britannia’s comeback.

A strong signal was needed, to make it clear that the America’s Cup had not already taken a definitive direction, and Ben Ainslie pulls out the stops and raises the level of performance as the best know how to do in the toughest of times. The Baronet also receives and collects a gift from the Kiwis, who in the first race fall off the foils during the pre-start, paving the way for him. But then in the second race he is a masterpiece: first he wins the start defending himself, and coming out, of a very difficult situation with Team New Zealand that seemed to be able to control him from downwind. After that he controls, stays in phase with every wind shift, spreads his elbows, and goes for the second point with his teeth against the steadily catching Kiwis. New Zealanders, however, who seemed much less comfortable with today’s wave, which was rather pronounced compared to the wind direction. Such a day seemed almost unimaginable on the eve of the event, but it confirms how much the human factor also matters and how much this final does not depend only on boat speed. We talk about it at 6:30 p.m. on Il Processo alla Coppa with a super episode: guests of Mauro Giuffrè and Luca Sordelli will be Commander Salvatore Sarno, owner of Shosholoza, the South African challenge to the 2007 America’s Cup; then there will be Mini Transat winner Luca Rosetti, our performance analyst Federico Albano from Formula Passion, Wally founder Luca Bassani, designer Giovanni Ceccarelli, Ida Castiglioni from Barcelona.