HAMILTON, Bermuda (AP) — Diego Botin made an aggressive move at the start and skippered Spain to a wire-to-wire victory against heavyweights Peter Burling of New Zealand and Tom Slingsby of Australia to win the Bermuda Sail Grand Prix on Sunday.
It was the second regatta win for the Spanish in Season 4 of tech billionaire Larry Ellison’s global league.
The season standings remain the same with three regattas to go before the $2 million, winner-take-all Grand Final in San Francisco on July 14.
New Zealand leads the 10-boat fleet with 77 points, followed by Australia with 67 and Spain with 65. It’s another 10 points back to ROCKWOOL Denmark and France. Australia, the three-time defending SailGP champion, was hurt by an eight-point penalty in the season standings for hitting a mark in the previous regatta in New Zealand.
“Coming up with the win is just amazing,” Botin said. “We just need to keep sailing the same way, put the most points on our board that we can and avoid the penalty points. Just keep focused on everything we’re doing.”
Spain made it into the podium race on a tiebreaker with Canada. Botin trailed Burling and Slingsby on the approach to the starting line but swung behind them to get the inside position and was the first around the first mark.
He made another smart maneuver at Gate 5 to force the Kiwis to turn away, resulting in a big gain. The Spanish achieved 100% flight time, staying up on their foils the entire race.
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