New Zealand got their campaign off to a perfect start by winning gold in SailGP’s opening race of the 2024/2025 season in Dubai on Sunday to take the overall lead.
Peter Burling was behind the wheel of the Kiwi boat as they powered their way to an impressive victory over Emirates Great Britain and the USA in the three-boat shoot-out final at the city’s Port Rashid Cruise Terminal-2.
Having won the Emirates Dubai SailGP, the Kiwis are top of the leaderboard after finishing 2-3-5-1-7 in the five fleet races to amass 37 championship points and qualify for the shoot-out.
Emirates GBR finished second overall on 34 points with the US in third on 32 points and Spain and Australia in fourth and fifth.
“It was awesome. It's quite a group, a new team to get into the final this weekend. I think it's one of the hardest things, so to keep your knees in and get the chance to win it all, we're really competitive,” Kiwi driver Burling said.
The New Zealanders got off to a flying start but were pegged back with the lead changing a few times between Great Britain and the US, before the Kiwis cruised to the front at the final marker to cross the finishing line comfortably ahead.
It was a dominant performance by the New Zealanders, who now head for their home race and the second round in the championship series in Auckland on January 18-19.
“Super excited to get home. Auckland, the buzz in town is already growing. The grandstand that is about to get built is just amazing,” Burling said of the next round.
“Any Kiwis that haven't bought tickets yet, it's going to be an absolutely amazing weekend. You'll regret it if you don't get on.
“Getting to Auckland, it's going to be a big bash in Auckland. It's going to be like this, a tight venue, really close to kind of reclaimed land.
“It has a huge grandstand, the render looks absolutely amazing, so it's going to be pretty cool to have over 10,000 Kiwis cheering us on each day.
“To win the opening race of the new calendar is a great start indeed, but 13 more events from here, sorry, we're looking forward to trying to continue to build.”
Missing the cut to make it to the final were the defending champions Spain and the three-time champions Australia, who finished fourth and fifth, respectively, in the overall standings.
The Australians rued missed opportunities but insisted they can take a lot of positives from their opening race campaign.
“We had four races in the top five and then the last race, bad start and just couldn't find a way through. We had a bad race and missed out on the count back,” the Aussie driver Tom Slingsby said.
“It was tough, it was just there, like the boats, I think we lost the Italians by boat length and we knew if we beat them we would have got through, but yeah, it was brutal.
“We were always able to sail through the fleet and sail really well and then on that last race we just couldn't find clear air everywhere we went. We got caught up in little battles and that's on me, honestly.
“I gotta position the boat better and I take the brunt of the bad start as well. I just didn't see the Kiwis coming in on the foil and by the time we reacted it was too late. The fleet is so condensed, obviously it's the first event of the season.
“We are a bit of a new change to the team and a few things changing but we sound really well. It's easy to focus on the bad race but we've got to focus on the positives and we got through Dubai and we would have liked to have done better, but it's okay.”
The 14-race championship concludes in Abu Dhabi in November 2025.
