Audi Sailing Team powered by ALL4ONE continues on the same good way they started this 3rd stage of the Audi MedCup 2011: after the first good day the team had yesterday with a 4th place and one win, they are leading the fleet tonight in Cagliari, with a first place on the provisional score board after 4 races. Consistency paid off, with two 3rd places in today’s races.
Chris Williams, Jib Trimmer: „we’re much happier with the boat’s performance in this event. We made some adjustments to the way we’re trimming the sails and tuning the rig, and we feel much better performance relative to the other boats, not necessarily faster, but much better than we were in Cascais and Marseille. One of the key things today was to keep cool under pressure, as racing was very tight. We have 3 days left in front of us, and we have to maintain our lead.“
Jochen Schümann, Skipper: „It was an exciting day, we’re quite happy to be in 1st place after 4 races this year, that’s obviously a good new feeling. I think we’re sailing a bit better, meaning we’re taking profit out of others‘ mistakes. The key of the second race in particular was that in the second upwind leg we kept contact with the leading group, and they started to fight a little bit amongst themselves (Container and Synergy) on the downwind leg, so we jibed a little bit earlier and put our shadow on them, which made us passing them.“
Sebastien Col, Tactician: „Everything’s good for now. We have quite windy conditions (with some Mistral…), flat water, so we are fairly happy as it suits the boat. The different things we learnt after Marseille and that we improved on the boat make us more competitive. We really enjoy sailing together in Cagliari, and you can really feel it. It is a virtuous circle that is starting, even if it remains fragile as it is bound to the boat’s speed and to our ability to get good starts. But above all we found the keys for speed upwind and downwind, so we can play with the other teams. When we do good things, we move to the front, and we do mistakes, we end up in the back of the fleet, where before we were always a bit in the back even when we did good moves, so we are really happy to live things like this now.“
Racing resumes tomorrow with two more races planned before Saturday’s coastal race.
Provisional overall standings after 4 races TP52 Series – Region of Sardinia Trophy
1. Audi Sailing Team powered by ALL4ONE – 11 points
2. Container – 14 points
3. Quantum Racing – 15 points
4. Synergy Russian Sailing Team – 16 points
5. Ran – 17 points
6. Bribon – 18 points
7. Audi Azzurra Sailing Team – 21 points
8. Gladiator – DNC – 36 points