Tight Conditions See BONDS Flying Roos Miss Podium at Sydney SailGP

The BONDS Flying Roos failed to qualify for the Podium Final at the KPMG Sydney Sail Grand Prix on Sydney Harbour, leaving the home favourites off the podium for the first time in the regatta’s history on Race Day 2, Sunday 1 March 2026. Tom Slingsby admitted the collapse was self-inflicted, saying, “It’s frustrating. We were in a good position even going into the last race. We were still inside the top three but we had a shocking final race. We also had some pretty poor results earlier in the day so we just didn’t sail well enough to make the Final and got the result we deserved. We need to go back and review – I need to look closely at what I did wrong because I made a lot of mistakes today.”

The weekend left championship implications. Emirates Great Britain leads the Rolex SailGP Championship on 28 pts with BONDS Flying Roos second on 25 pts, keeping Australia within striking distance despite the Sydney setback. The published season leaderboard shows U.S. SailGP Team and DS Automobiles SailGP Team France tied on 20 pts, Los Gallos on 16 pts, and Artemis on 15 pts, with Red Bull Italy and ROCKWOOL Racing on 11 pts apiece and Germany Deutsche Bank on 10 pts.

On-course conditions and tight mark roundings compounded the pressure across the fleet. Emirates Great Britain driver Giles Scott said the team “didn’t really get anything right” and described Sydney as a weekend where “when it rains, it pours.” Scott added that crews were “fighting potential contact today and getting locked up at marks,” a line that underlines the physical, congested racing that contributed to variable results and frustrated penalties or close calls for multiple teams.

The BONDS Flying Roos had been “in a good position even going into the last race” before their final heat unravelled, Slingsby’s account makes clear. Livesaildie called Sydney “a remarkable event for all the wrong reasons” for Australia’s three-time Rolex SailGP Champions, a rare reversal for a team that had become synonymous with consistent home-water finishes. Sailingworld noted the Australians will have to mine the weekend for lessons as the championship season continues.

Other fleet stories arrived in the wake of the upset. Sailingworld reported Mubadala Brazil finished the weekend seventh overall after steady mid-fleet placings, a promising result ahead of that team’s home debut next month. Offshore, spectators with team signs watched racing from Shark Island in images credited to Simon Bruty for SailGP, and SailGP’s technical-area caption listed race personnel in front of the Sydney Harbour Bridge on Race Day 2, including Anne Marie Rindom, Giles Scott, Phil Robertson, Taylor Canfield, Martine Grael, Tom Slingsby, Dylan Fletcher, Anna Barth, Sebastien Schneiter, Nicole van der Velden, and Nathan Outteridge.

Slingsby’s promise to review mistakes and Sail-world’s note that the squad will “take valuable learnings from the weekend as the championship season continues” closes a bruising chapter for the Flying Roos. Sitting second with 25 pts, they will need a clean set of races and sharper mark work to defend home pride and chase Emirates Great Britain’s 28-point lead.