Ben Ainslie’s INEOS Britannia has secured victory in the Louis Vuitton Cup Round Robin Series, thus allowing them to choose which team they will race against for the Louis Vuitton Semi-Finals.

That privilege, awarded for their Round Robin victory makes the British – in theory – the most likely of the four remaining challengers to go through to the Louis Vuitton Final.

INEOS will announce the team they have selected to go up against the day before Semi-Final racing on Friday 13 September 2024. The most likely selection will be Alinghi Red Bull Racing, who have looked the weakest of the remaining challengers to date. However, writing for The Telegraph newspaper yesterday, Ben Ainslie noted: ‘Everyone probably expects us to pick Alinghi as they won the fewest round-robin races of the four remaining challengers.

‘But there are arguments for and against every team. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Jimmy Spithill, one of the helms on Luna Rossa, said in his post-race interview on Monday that he was looking forward to their “semifinal against American Magic”. He may have gone a little bit early but let’s see.”

Whilst the Italian Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli looked like the early favourites, the British have momentum against them, having now beaten Spithill and Bruni twice in a row.

INEOS take victory

To finish as Round Robin winners has been an impressive turnaround by the British team, who were almost no one’s pick to top the Round Robin series after their performance in the America’s Cup Preliminary Regatta and the early part of the Round Robin series.

I will happily concede that the early impression I had was that Britannia was slow compared to much of the competition. But by the closing stages of the Round Robin, they were quickly looking to be one of the stronger challengers.

Admittedly there was some luck to the British win, with Luna Rossa having to pull out of their only scheduled race on the final day. However, Ainslie and Co. still sailed impeccably in the final few races.

Shades of 2021?

For America’s Cup regulars, the story of the British team being written off, only to come back and win the Round Robin series will be a familiar one as this is exactly what happened in Auckland 2021.

In that regatta, Luna Rossa knocked out a post-capsize American Magic in the Semi-Final to face the Brits in the Finals. Ultimately, the Italian team were too quick for the Brits and it was Luna Rossa who advanced to the America’s Cup itself.

It might, then, be easy to suppose a similar fate may befall the Brits this time out, but reviewing the races again, there is an argument for a bit more positivity for British fans.

In 2021, Ainslie’s INOES team were well off the pace in the Preliminary event, the America’s Cup World Series. However, that event took place over a month ahead of the Louis Vuitton Cup (then called the Prada Cup).

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This gap allowed Ainslie’s team to spend countless hours in the shed developing their boat and adding a significant number of developments as Ainslie explained at the time: “We have brought a lot of new parts online including a new rudder, new rudder elevator, new mast, new mainsail, and new headsails. Then alongside that we have made modifications to our foils, to the aero package on our hull and we have changed the systems inside the hull…we have certainly been busy.”

This time around there has been little time for the Challengers to make any changes to the boats (though Kiwi coach Ray Davies did hint, rather ominously, at the large amount of improvements that the Defenders plan to be making while the Challengers duke it out).

Even if they wanted to, there is not a great deal that the teams could do. Teams must declare their equipment for racing five days ahead of each event’s start – this remains the case for the Semi-Finals with teams having to declare equipment for use on the Semis on Monday of this week.

Holding back

To win the America’s Cup as a Challenger, in theory you want to keep some developments back.

The aim is to add to the boat over the course of the racing and arrive at the startline of the America’s Cup with a significantly quicker boat than you started with – and crucially one about which your competition does not have a full understanding.

Looking at the performance curve of INEOS Britannia in the last Cup, it’s easy to suppose that the team threw everything they had in the shed – plus the kitchen sink – to haul their boat into contention.

This had the desired effect initially but as the event progressed it seems as though they ran out of development potential, while Luna Rossa was able to get past them.

Ainslie has spoken about their latest design as having plenty of potential and, when things were not looking as good early in the series talked of unlocking that potential. But we know, due to the rules that the team cannot have just thrown new parts at the boat.

There are certainly some changes that they can make around trim, setup, and moding – and it’s clear they have done a fair bit of work here, particularly upwind, where they initially looked relatively weak. They won’t disclose what, of course – when asked exactly what they’ve done by the Cup commentary team British coach Rob Wilson said he simply couldn’t say. Secrecy remains more critical than ever at this stage of the game.

But reviewing each race the story is not of a boat that has got substantially quicker, rather a team that has improved and learned how to exploit their strengths and hide their weaknesses.

Performance to date

Taking a look at the starts, I’ve noted every race start win or loss – defining an ‘even’ start where one team has a clear advantage and leads at the first cross as a ‘win’ for that team.

Looking at the Preliminary regatta, INEOS sailed against each Challenger and the Defender once, for a total of five races.

Of these races, the British team can be said to have truly won the start on only one occasion, against Alinghi Red Bull Racing. And yet they walked away from the series with two race wins.

However, they were also over the startline for two of those starts, ceding the start to the opposition. One of the races resulted in a win anyway and one resulted in a loss.

OCS penalties (and unforced boundary penalties) were a significant feature in the early races and seem to have gone away at the tail end of the Round Robin races, indicating some software adjustment – or an increased level of caution.

In the Round Robin Series, they raced each Challenger and the Defender twice (though one race against New Zealand was uncontested as the Kiwis repaired their boat, which had been dropped by a crane the previous day).

Of their 10 contested starts across that series, the Brits won seven and finished the series with seven race wins in total.

Winning the start

That might make the change seem fairly obvious, Ainslie and Fletcher got better at starting and so won more races. But that would be to over-simplify something that looks to be the product of many changes. The new partnership between the co-helms is maturing – it’s clear to hear in the comms how well the two now are working together in decision making and information sharing.

When it comes to the boat, INEOS looked to have a decent turn of pace downwind and looked to be a little slower upwind early on in the series. And a lack of pace upwind is likely to contribute to the ‘loss’ of a start even if you get off the line even.

In the first race of the Preliminary Regatta the Brits started just to windward of American Magic and were forced to tack off as the US boat squeezed them with a decent high mode.

The Brits themselves did this to their opposition on two occasions in the Round Robins, once against Alinghi, and once against Luna Rossa.

But their race against the Kiwis at the start of the second Round Robin, looks to have marked something of a turning point.

New Zealand started to windward of INEOS and INEOS went straight into a high mode to try and squeeze the Kiwis. For their part it seems as though New Zealand may have got a decent shift, but they also went into a great high mode and simply held their lane all the way to the boundary, untroubled.

From that moment the starts to the next races went as follows:

• Vs Alinghi – Brits start well gapped off to windward and sail low and fast to get over the top of Alinghi. INEOS wins the start.
• Vs Luna Rossa – Brits start to leeward of Luna Rossa but sail low and fast to get to the boundary first, tack and sail over the top of Luna Rossa out of the tack. Brits win the start.
• Vs Orient Express – Brits start well gapped off to windward and sail low and fast to get over the top of Orient Express. Brits win the start.
• Vs Luna Rossa – Brits start well gapped off to windward and sail low and fast to get over the top of Luna Rossa. Brits win the start.

Put simply, it seems as though the Brits have plenty of pace when low and fast – which is a concept supported by the demonstrated pace downwind. But they may not have a great high and slow mode.

As the Round Robins progressed, not only had Ainslie and Fletcher got better at starting, but it seems they have got a better understanding of their boat, which is pretty quick when sailed to her strengths.

Of course, if this is the case, INEOS will need development to find a useful high mode as it is a current weakness of the boat and one that could well be exploited by the competition.

A boat to win the America’s Cup?

Boat speed data across the series suggests INEOS’ speed seems to be more pronounced in the windier conditions and their win record leans slightly towards windier conditions – though patterns are slightly muddied as the light wind races are slightly less about boatspeed and more about staying on foils and having good manoeuvres.

A key built-in advantage for the Defender of the America’s Cup is that they do not have to take part in any knockout racing until the America’s Cup itself.

The weather in Barcelona changes between September and October as INEOS’ Tom Cheney pointed out to us in his piece on America’s Cup weather:

‘It wouldn’t be too cynical to suggest this was likely part of the cunning Kiwis’ defence strategy.

‘The Challenger rounds take place in September, when Barcelona typically sees more consistent thermal winds, usually with predictable patterns, and moderate sea states.

‘Then the America’s Cup Match in October brings increased variability with a mix of weaker thermal winds but potential for stronger gradient winds, and a significantly worse sea state.’

As such, any Challenger hoping to beat Emirates Team New Zealand in the America’s Cup, will probably require a boat that is able to win the Challenger Selection Series but is possibly at her best in slightly a slightly wider range of conditions, and certainly quicker in windier weather than would be necessary to win the Challenger Selection Series alone.

Follow all of our 2024 America’s Cup coverage

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