by Lucy Harwood
It was a good start to the final America’s Cup World Series event of the current season in Naples for the J.P.Morgan BAR team. They won their quarterfinal match race against Energy Team, followed by a third and a first in the first two fleet races of the Series. Their consistent form put the team on top of the leaderboard after day one.
The breeze arrived in time for racing in the Gulf of Naples, but conditions proved tricky and inconsistent, small mistakes were punished on the race-course. No teams seemed to survive unscathed including J.P.Morgan BAR who struggled at the start of their match race against the French Energy Team.
“The wind was changing all through the start of the match race it made it very, very difficult, and we just got it completely wrong. Yann Guichard and the Energy Team did really well especially in those kind of conditions when the wind is changing around so much, but the race was never really over, we got once chance to make a break and we took it, luckily it went our way so we were a little bit fortunate with that one,” explained skipper Ben Ainslie.
However the team sailed consistently in the day’s two opening races, to sit on top of the leaderboard after day one. “It was a good day for us in difficult conditions, we rode our luck a little bit at times certainly in the match race. The boys did a great job of staying calm and dealt with the conditions really well picking our way through on the shifts where we needed to. We won the match race and had a first and a third in the two fleet races so we’re happy for the first day, but there is a long way to go and we need to keep working on our performance for the next few days.” added Ainslie
JP Morgan BAR with the British Ambassador to Italy, Christopher Prentice. Image copyright Lloyd Images/JP Morgan BAR
Supporting the team today was a special visitor; the British Ambassador to Italy Christopher Prentice CMG joined the team for their first day of racing in Naples and stepped onboard as a guest racer during the first fleet race of the day.
“The wind was fickle today, I loved being here in Naples I had a great experience sailing with the J.P.Morgan BAR team. These boats are amazing to watch and even more so to sail on, I was very excited to race with the team onboard and it is great that they are leading after day one.”
Racing for J.P.Morgan BAR starts at 1450 with the first fleet race tomorrow.
To read Ben Ainslie’s daily blog click here
Day 1 Naples – Overall standings after two fleet races
1 J.P. MORGAN BAR – 21 pts
2 EMIRATES TEAM NZ – 20 pts
3 LUNA ROSSA PIRANHA – 18pts
4 ORACLE TEAM USA SLINGSBY – 16pts
5 ENERGY TEAM – 14 pts
6 LUNA ROSSA SWORDFISH – 14 pts
7 ARTEMIS WHITE – 11pts
8 CHINA TEAM – 7pts
9 HS RACING – 7pts
Replay the racing
Thursday, April 18 – Click here to replay today's footage
Watch the racing live
Friday, April 19 – Watch the racing live click here
13:00 Dock-out
14:05 AC World Series Naples – Match Racing Quarter Finals
14:50 AC World Series Naples – Fleet Races 3 and 4
16:00 Dock-in
Daily video highlights
Daily video highlights of the racing and interviews with the crew of J.P.Morgan BAR are now available on jpmorganbarblog.com/video
J.P.Morgan BAR blog
For all the latest news from the team including daily updates from Ben Ainslie go to jpmorganbarblog.com
America's Cup
