As Ben Ainslie and his crew turned the Red Sea blue after a near capsize in the final fleet race of this America’s Cup warm-up regatta, it was hard to escape a familiar sense of dread when it comes 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 to much improved boat handling and speed compared to their last outing at Vilanova in September, when they finished last. But in the end Ineos Britannia finished fifth in a fleet of six boats, with only newcomers France behind them. It wasn’t the outcome they wanted.
The good news is that it was just a practice event. The British team has another nine months to sharpen their racing claws, ready for the real thing, the 37th America’s Cup in Barcelona next autumn, when they will sail the much larger 22-metre Cup boat they are building with partners built behind closed doors. Mercedes F1. Anyone can blow that out of the water.
But it’s fair to say questions are being asked of the British Challenger of Record, which has less than a year to go; about their direction, their management structure and perhaps most relevant of all, their main financial backer.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s impending takeover of 25 percent of Manchester United for £1.35 billion has added a new dynamic to Britain’s America’s Cup challenge. Does putting that amount of money into his boyhood football club make it less likely that Ratcliffe will renew for another America’s Cup campaign? Will he be willing to commit more than £100m per campaign unless he sees a big step forward? For example, should they reach the cup match this time? If he steps back, who will step in?
Ainslie, as you might expect, doesn’t sound overly concerned. All his conversations with Ratcliffe, he insists, were positive in nature. “It’s an obvious question to ask,” he admits. “But from the conversations we’ve had, we’re already talking well beyond the next America’s Cup. I don’t think United as an investment will really change that.
“Obviously it’s not a great economic environment right now. Where it will be in twelve months is anyone’s guess. Hopefully in a better place. But I think, honestly, that would probably be a bigger deciding factor than the U.S. investment.”
Ainslie would lose more than most 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 the different properties can help each other. From the more than fifty Mercedes F1 engineers working in Brackley on Ineos’ Cup boat RB3, to the work being done with Ineos Grenadiers (formerly Team Sky) to develop Ineos Britannia’s ‘cyclors’ ( the four sailors on the Cup boat which will generate hydraulic power via static bicycles).
Again, Ainslie insists it’s ‘business as usual’. He still reports bimonthly to Ratcliffe in Monaco or London. He still attends the biennial ‘CEO days’, where the heads of the various Ineos companies come together to brainstorm. He still contacts James Allison, the Mercedes F1 engineer who was technical director of both the F1 team and the America’s Cup team, on a fortnightly basis, only to have his involvement in the sailing project questioned earlier this year when Mercedes F1’s Due to the poor start to the season campaign, Toto Wolff brought him back into F1 as technical director.
‘I’d be lying if I said that [Allison’s move] would have had no 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 bracket. He’s one of those people who, because of his expertise and vast experience, oversees a lot… so he’s not necessarily always that hands-on. He was always more: ‘What are the resources at Mercedes? What do we need in the cup team? How do we get the right people in the right positions?’ And he’s brilliant at it. We still meet every two weeks to talk about the strategy and the campaign in general. He really invested emotionally in the cup.”
Ainslie: I’m confident we’ll get to where we need to be
It’s not just a matter of design and technology. Questions were also asked to the Ineos sailing team. There’s no denying that other teams in Jeddah were more flexible, especially the Kiwis and the Italians. Luna Rossa’s performance was especially notable because they had a 19-year-old, Marco Gradoni, as one of their co-drivers.
Gradoni is like a mini Ainslie: three-time Optimist world champion in the inflatable boat. Only instead of going through the Olympic classes, he jumped straight from a simulator to the America’s Cup. “It’s seriously impressive,” says Ainslie.
It begs the question: is this now a young man’s game? Do the likes of Ainslie and Jimmy Spithill still have the talent to handle these flying machines?
There are also other questions surrounding Ainslie. Ineos Britannia’s management structure is virtually unique in that the four-time Olympic champion holds virtually every senior position. He is the team boss, the face of the project, the helmsman and skipper, the general manager and not to forget the husband and father of two small children.
Ainslie admits that taking on so many different roles “can be a challenge” but denies wearing too many hats. He has gotten better at delegating, he says. Giles Scott has been promoted to head of sailing. Grant Simmer, former CEO, is still involved as a consultant. And so forth.
In sailing, Ainslie accepts that he has not had his best year and gives himself a “B-”. “But when it comes to reaching the cup, I see a good path to get myself where I need to be,” he says.
To this end, the team has just purchased a second AC40 so that they can test with two boats in Barcelona from January. And with the key design elements of RB3, their racing boat, now signed off, he can focus more on the sailing side.
“We are in a much better place than this time four years ago,” he concludes. “We obviously don’t know what our rivals will come up with, but our expectations are that we will be on the margins. Right now there isn’t one area where I’m panicking that we’re really falling short. We can certainly sail better. I know that. But I am confident that next year we will have time to get where we need to be.”