Image copyright Nico Martinez/Audi MedCup.
by Stephanie Nadin
The first day of the Region of Sardinia Trophy started today on Cagliari's race course, with a quite unstable wind blowing approximately from 8 to 13 knots.
Audi A1 powered by ALL4ONE did a solid first race showing consistency, despite the conditions, which were not easy to use at the beginning of the afternoon, and the French-German team took the 5th place on this race.
Jochen Schümann and his crew then won the second race: they took a very good start with full speed in the middle of the line, proving that they are back to business on this event. They led the fleet during all the race, and crossed the finish line 36 seconds in front of Emirates Team New Zealand and far from the rest of the fleet.
Last but not least for the third race of the day, Audi A1 powered by ALL4ONE fought once again within the top of the fleet in a wind that went up to 15 knots, and finished 5th on this race, just a few meters away from TeamOrigin (4th).
The team is currently second of the provisional general ranking after 3 races tonight, sharing the lead with Emirates Team New Zealand.
Image copyright Ian Roman/Audi MedCup.
Jochen Schümann, Skipper: "Being in a shared lead and on high level today with Emirates Team New Zealand is a very good sign, even if we know that we won one race and made small mistakes in the other two. So it was not a perfect day, but a very good start into the last Audi MedCup event here in Cagliari. It is a very tight competition here as always. Tomorrow is another race day, we have to fight as today, and we will see what the outcome will be. I hope that we will perform as well as today. The team was good, we did a lot of good tactics and two good starts, so we have to continue like that."
Philippe Mourniac, Navigator: "We have focused on our work on the starts, and that paid back today. As the wind direction was not stable at all, there were some good tricks to play, and we were not too bad at that game. The most important thing today is to realize that we have been able to draw the lessons from our weaknesses on the two last events, and to come back to basics. Since we're here, all the team is moving forward with positive dynamics to build good starts, and we actually achieved good starts. From there, we can really "play" with the top of the fleet, whereas on the two last events we had to deal with the starts we were doing."
Provisional overall standings after 3 races TP52 Series
1. Emirates Team New Zealand - 11 points
2. Audi A1 powered by ALL4ONE - 11 points
3. Matador - 12 points
4. Synergy - 14 points
5. TeamOrigin 1851 - 15 points
6. Bribon - 18 points
7. Artemis - 19 points
8. Quantum Racing - 19 points
9. Cristabella - 20 points
10. Luna Rossa - 26 points
11. Bigamist - 36 points / DNC
Audi A1 Team powered by ALL4ONE
Audi MedCup
