Slingsby puts Aussies in SailGP lead; former F1 champ Vettel takes German boat for a spin

Three-time defending SailGP champion Tom Slingsby and Team Australia navigated through a tight course and marginal conditions to take the lead of the Oracle Los Angeles Sail Grand Prix with finishes of first, second and fourth Saturday in fleet races on the Port of L.A.'s Outer Harbor.

Minutes after racing ended, four-time Formula One champion Sebastian Vettel hopped aboard the Germany SailGP Team's foiling 50-foot catamaran and took the wheel for some speed runs. Vettel is an investor in the new team that is skippered by two-time Olympic medalist Erik Heil.

“Obviously, yes I had the wheel and did some turns, but it takes a lot more than just having the wheel in your hand,” Vettel told The Associated Press. “Very impressive, and all without an engine, you know, to have that much power and speed building up.”

Vettel, who retired from F1 last year, estimates the catamaran, powered by a wingsail, hit roughly 65 km/h, or about 40 mph. “On the water it's a very different feeling. It feels a lot higher." He said foiling “is a little bit like flying because everything goes silent and and then you just hear the wind picking up. It's a sort of feeling you want more, more more.”

The Aussie crew, full of Olympic and America's Cup veterans, has 26 points, two ahead of Sir Ben Ainslie of Emirates GBR and Nicolai Sehested of Rockwool Denmark in the fleet of 10 identical 50-foot foiling catamarans. Diego Botin has the Spanish in fourth with 22 points while Phil Robertson and Canada are fifth with 18.

Team USA's Jimmy Spithill and New Zealand's Peter Burling are tied with 14 points. Spithill is trying to rebound from a disappointing ninth place in the Season 4 opener at Chicago while Burling had a disappointing day after winning on Lake Michigan in mid-June. France, Germany and Switzerland rounded out the standings.

Heil said Vettel “really enjoyed it. That raised the atmosphere after the bad racing again." The Germans finished last in the season opener.

“We're really happy with today,” said Slingsby, an Olympic gold medalist and former America's Cup champion. “The first race was as good a race as we've sailed all season. The second race we sailed well; a couple of little mistakes but they didn't cost us too much. The third race a few more mistakes. I'm glad they capped at us three races because we were on a little downhill trajectory but we get to come back and reset tomorrow and try to get some wins.”

After two more fleet races Sunday, the top three boats advance to the podium race.

This is the Southern California debut of SailGP, the global league founded by tech baron Larry Ellison and five-time America's Cup winner Russell Coutts of New Zealand. Coutts won a gold medal in the 1984 Olympics, when sailing was held off nearby Long Beach.

Ainslie, the most decorated Olympic sailor with four golds and a silver, went 2-6-1 to put his team in great position to reach the podium race.

Ainslie had a great start in the first race but Slingsby reeled him in and took the lead midway through the race. In the third race, Ainslie nailed the start and the British catamaran was the first to rise up on its foils as the wind dropped.

“We had a massive lead but we were very conscious of getting stuck in a hole in the wind,” Ainslie said. He credited strategist Hannah Mills — the most decorated female Olympic sailor with two golds and a silver — with getting the boat in the right spot at the start. "Good team effort on a tight course like that,” Ainslie said.

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