by As Ben Ainslie and his crew turned the Red Sea air blue after nearly capsizing in the final fleet race of this America’s Cup warm-up race, it was hard to escape a familiar feeling of dread when it came to the challenges. of the British America’s Cup. After all, it’s been 172 years.
There were mitigating factors for this result. And Ainslie can certainly point out that the boat’s handling and speed have greatly improved compared to her last outing at Vilanova in September, when they finished last. But in the end it all ended with Ineos Britannia fifth in a fleet of six boats, followed only by newcomer France. It was not the result they wanted.
The good news is that it was just a practice event. The British team still has nine months to sharpen their racing claws and be ready for the real thing, the 37th America’s Cup in Barcelona next autumn, when they will sail the much larger 75-foot Cup boat they have been busy building in door closed with its partners. Mercedes F1. That may still blow everyone out of the water.
But it’s fair to say there are questions being asked of Britain’s Challenger of Record with less than a year to go; about its navigation, its management structure and, perhaps most pertinent of all, its main sponsor.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s imminent acquisition of 25 per cent of Manchester United for £1.35bn has added another dynamic to Britain’s America’s Cup challenge. Does investing that kind of money in his boyhood football club make Ratcliffe less likely to re-sign for another Copa America campaign? Will he be willing to continue contributing more than £100m a campaign unless he sees a big step forward? Will they need, for example, to play the Cup match this time? If he steps back, who comes in?
Ainslie, as expected, doesn’t seem too worried. All of her conversations with Ratcliffe, she insists, have been positive in nature. “It’s an obvious question,” she acknowledges. “But because of the conversations we have had, we are already talking much beyond the next Copa América. I don’t think United as an investment will really change that.
“It’s obviously not a great economic climate right now. Where it will be in 12 months is anyone’s guess. Hopefully in a better place. But I think, frankly, it would probably be a more decisive factor than the US investment.”
Ainslie would lose more than most of Ineos’ sporting properties if Ratcliffe decided to pull the plug. The America’s Cup project is almost the perfect embodiment of the “cross-pollination” that Ineos likes to talk about to illustrate how its various properties can help each other. From the more than 50 Mercedes F1 engineers working in Brackley on the RB3, the Ineos Cup boat, to the work being done with Ineos Grenadiers (formerly Team Sky) to help prepare the Ineos Britannia ‘cyclors’ (the four sailors in the Cup boat who will generate hydraulic power using stationary bicycles).
Once again, Ainslie insists that everything is business as usual. She still reports to Ratcliffe every two months in Monaco or London. She still attends the biannual “CEO days”, where bosses from the various Ineos companies meet to exchange ideas. He still communicates every two weeks with James Allison, the Mercedes F1 engineer who was technical director of both the F1 team and the America’s Cup team, only for his involvement in the navigation project to be thrown into doubt earlier this year. When Mercedes F1’s poor start to the season prompted Toto Wolff to bring him back to F1 as technical director.
“I would be lying if I said [Allison’s move] It hadn’t had any impact,” Ainslie admits. “But it’s probably not as much as people think or fear. I mean, James… you’d put him in some sort of Dave Brailsford group. He’s one of those people who, because of his knowledge and vast experience, oversees a lot of things… so he’s not necessarily that hands-on all the time. It was always more ‘What are the resources at Mercedes? What do we need in the Cup team? How do we get the right people into the right positions? And he’s brilliant at it. We still meet every two weeks to talk about strategy and the campaign in general. He is very emotionally involved in the Cup.”
Ainslie: I’m confident we will get to where we need to be
It is not simply a question of design and technology. Questions have also been asked of the Ineos sailing team. There is no getting around the fact that other teams performed better in Jeddah, especially the Kiwis and the Italians. Luna Rossa’s performance was particularly notable as they had 19-year-old Marco Gradoni as one of their co-directors.
Gradoni is like a mini-Ainslie: three-time Optimist dinghy world champion. Only instead of going through the Olympic classes he jumped directly from the simulator to the Copa América. “It’s really impressive,” says Ainslie.
The question arises: is this now a young man’s game? Do people like Ainslie and Jimmy Spithill still have what it takes to handle these flying machines?
There are other questions surrounding Ainslie as well. Ineos Britannia’s management structure is quite unique in the fact that the four-time Olympic champion occupies virtually all management positions. He is the team manager, the face of the project, the helmsman and skipper, the executive director, not to mention a husband and father of two young children.
Ainslie admits that taking on so many different roles “can be challenging” but denies she is wearing too many hats. She has gotten better at delegating, she says. Giles Scott has been promoted to chief navigation officer. Grant Simmer, former CEO, is still involved as a consultant. He etcetera.
In the field of sailing, Ainslie accepts that he has not had his best year and grades himself with a “B-”. “But in terms of reaching the top for the Cup, I can see a decent path to get to where I need to be,” she says.
To this end, the team has just acquired a second AC40 so they will be able to carry out tests with two boats in Barcelona starting in January. And with the major design elements of the RB3, your racing boat now approved, you can focus more on sailing.
“We are in a much better situation than four years ago,” he concludes. “Obviously we don’t know what our rivals will come up with, but our expectations are that we will be in the stadium. Right now there is no area where I am panicking because we are really deficient. We can certainly navigate better. I know that. But I am confident that next year we will have time to get to where we need to be.”
