SailGP: Black Foils ready to push hard in New York this weekend

New Zealand SailGP Team as they sail past One World Trade Centre during a practice session ahead of the Mubadala New York Sail Grand Prix in New York © Bob Martin/SailGP

SailGP is in iconic New York and despite their commanding eleven point lead on the leaderboard going into the penultimate event of Season 4 the Black Foils won’t be holding anything back.

Time and points to book a place in the top three winner-takes-all Grand Final are reducing with just this New York event, and then the San Francisco event to run. Going into this weekend’s event, being raced on the Hudson River, the kiwis are best placed of the ten teams to secure a spot in the Season 4 Grand Final.

Black Foils driver Peter Burling is keen to secure a podium finish in New York in the lead up to the US$2 million Grand Final race in San Francisco in just three weeks time.

“We want to go in with confidence and momentum. It’s a 15-minute shootout to win the season and the overall leaderboard doesn’t help you do that so we’ll be pushing hard this weekend for sure.”

Behind them the battle for second and third on the leaderboard is hotter than ever and triple champions Australia find themselves in unfamiliar territory currently lying 3rd.

Driver Tom Slingsby says the pressure is on, but they can win again. “Three seasons straight we’ve won the season points score and gone into the final with a comfortable buffer knowing we’re going to be in the grand final race multiple events in advance and this is the first time we don’t have that comfort.”

“It’s exciting to be in this position, for sure there’s more adrenaline, there’s more on the line knowing that every race counts. I have full confidence in my team. We perform well under pressure. We’ve won three million dollar races before.”

Burling says he’d happily take on the Flying Roos in the Grand Final. “We always want to race the Australians but whoever gets there deserves to be there.”

For now though the Black Foils focus is on this weekend’s event in New York and Burling says, “It looks like an awesome weekend ahead.”

They’re on the water today for practice racing and the weekend forecast is for moderate breeze and sweltering heat of 30-35 degrees.

The Mubadala New York Sail Grand Prix begins tomorrow in front of a sold out stadium on Governors Island on Saturday 22 June at 4:30 pm local time.