With Peter Burling on the helm Luna Rossa is the team to beat as the final America’s Cup Preliminary Regatta hits the water on the Bay of Naples this weekend.
“That’s the million dollar question, right? How do you beat Pete Burling,” Team New Zealand skipper Nathan Outteridge said on the eve of the regatta.
Outteridge said they weren’t looking too far ahead.
“I think for this event the first thing that I do is make it into the final. It’s very easy to make assumptions that it’ll be a New Zealand-Luna Rossa final and we’ll be the two drivers in there, but the reality is that there’s a great fleet here.”
In the final in Sardinia the New Zealanders were penalised for being over the start line early and they never recovered.
“You’ve got to keep focused on yourself and just keep improving your processes and how we operate as a team and if the opportunity comes again to have another rematch, that’d be amazing,” Outteridge said.
“We’ve worked a lot on our match racing pre-starts to make sure we know strong ways to start these boats.
“So we feel like we’re a bit better prepared now for a match race.”
Outteridge would be happy if Luna Rossa had a good regatta.
“Our goal is to be in the final. If Pete’s there and the Luna Rossa team’s there, that’d be amazing. And it’d be cool to have a rematch.”
There are 10 boats from seven teams taking part in Naples this week.