Tomorrow things start to get serious: in the sea in front of Barcelona the the Louis Vuitton Cup final regattas. Back in the water, then, Luna Rossa Prada Pirelli, challenging Ineos Britannia.
We compete best of 13 match race: the first team to reach seven victories will win the challengers’ event and will obtain a pass to the 37th America’s Cup. Awaiting the winner of this confrontation in the prestigious and historic sailing competition is the defender, Team Emirates New Zealand. The first two races are scheduled for tomorrow between theItalian AC75with the pennant of the Circolo della Vela Sicilia, and the English boat. We will therefore return to sea on 28 and 29 September, to then finish the series in the first days of October.
For Luna Rossa the fifth final in history
For Luna Rossa, wanted by the entrepreneur Patrizio Bertelli in 1997 and launched in 1999, it is the fifth final in the tournament reserved for challengers. The Prada and Pirelli-branded boat has won among the challengers on two occasions in the past, in 2000 and 2021 (when it was called the Prada Cup), then losing on both occasions in the America’s Cup against New Zealand. Luna Rossa has been stopped in the final of the Louis Vuitton Cup on two other occasions, surrendering both in 2007 and 2013, as usual, in the presence of the Kiwis, a real “bête noire” of the Italian sailors. During the Round Robins, Ineos Britannia and the team helmed by the Sicilian Francesco Bruni and the Australian Jimmy Spithill have faced each other three times: Luna Rossa won one match race, the English the other two (including the play-off to decide the first classified of the first phase). Tomorrow, however, a completely different story begins and on the eve there seems to be great balance between the two boats and the two teams. Of course the pressure will increase now but the team with skipper and director Max Sirena has already shown, this year and in the past, that they know how to handle it at best.
“The Race Towards the Dream”
The race towards the dream is back on. So, today at the press conference, Francesco Bruni renamed it: “In Italy the America’s Cup is a dream. We’ve been chasing it for a long time, since before I was born. We have an opportunity now and we have to play our cards”, said the 51-year-old from Palermo. His helmsman colleague Spithill is on the same wavelength: “We come from a very tight semi-final series against American Magic. The British have made a significant leap forward compared to the preliminary races. We expect a very close match from tomorrow between two very close boats. We want to get to the America’s Cup against New Zealand: we are ready to bring home the result”. “In 2021 the Kiwis were a step above everyone else. Now instead we are all very close: everything is very open and uncertain”, added the Australian.