As if there isn’t enough rivalry between Formula One Teams, it now appears that some will take their aggression to each other from the track to the water.
It’s confirmed that Mercedes and Red Bull Racing have aligned themselves with America’s Cup challengers and it’s speculated that Ferrari may also join them.
If you’re asking how and why this would happen, one example is British America’s Cup Challenge team has joined with Mercedes-AMG F1 Applied Science, a division of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team, to form INEOS Britannia, to combine arguably the best of the worlds high-performance marine and automotive engineering, with the goal to win the 37th America’s Cup for Britain. James Allison will be the technical lead of British America’s Cup challenge in his capacity as Chief Technical Officer of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas F1 Team and INEOS Britannia.
This link to the INEOS Britannia 37th Americas Cup Launch gives an overview of the new team and also includes an ‘Inside Track Launch video’ from October 2021, that looks specifically at the Mercedes F1 teams involvement.
Then after much speculation, just before Christmas last year Alinghi Red Bull Racing confirmed an official entry for the 2024 America’s Cup, and in doing so took the Mercedes Red Bull rivalry to a whole new level.
This Sail-World article looks at the Alinghi Red Bull Racing partnership and also includes the launch video from December 2021.
Alinghi Red Bull Racing 37th America’s Cup Challenge
The dates for the 37th America’s Cup along with the venue will be announced on March 31st, 2022. Generally, the event is raced in the home country of the defender, but the current holder of the cup Emirates Team New Zealand have indicated that there are three possible venues, Auckland – New Zealand, Cork – Ireland or Jeddah – Saudi Arabia.
For me, the 25th America’s Cup in 1983 was one of this country’s greatest sporting achievements, when John Bertrand and his crew came from 3-1 down in the best of 7 series, aboard Alan Bonds ‘Australia 2’ to become the first successful challenge of the New York Yacht Club’s 132-year defence of the Cup. Who could ever forget the role that yacht designer Ben Lexcen and his ‘winged keel’ had to play in that victory and at the time how it was cutting edge technology?
But over the last twenty years technology in sailing has been taken to a whole new level as this 2021 America’s Cup Promotion Video shows and I reckon the 37th America’s Cup (whenever its held in 2024) is going to be one of the most anticipated sporting events for many, many years.