Under pressure in Pompey: SailGP’s Emirates GBR assessed – The Foil Podcast – Ep 28

This week, The Foil’s podcast team train their focus on Emirates Great Britain as they head for home waters and the Portsmouth SailGP next week.Following a plug for our first live podcast – on the morning of Sunday July 26 at Musto’s flagship Lighthouse store on Portsmouth’s waterfront – Neil Cole, Andy Rice and Freddie Carr get into an analysis of reigning champions Emirates GBR and how their title defence is going at the mid-point of season six.After a fast start in Australasia, “the wheels fells of when they got to the Americas”, as Andy puts it. Yet through it all the British F50 is still equal second on points with Spain’s Los Gallos, despite failing to score at all in two rounds.Andy asks Freddie for insight into how the team management operates: is a “good vibes” Gareth Southgate approach or more a “hairdryer” Thomas Tuchel environment?Freddie then dives into the Emirates GBR backstory, cycling back to the first season of SailGP and plotting how the team has evolved. As he says, this was a pioneering squad that led the commercial growth that has made SailGP such a success story.Speaking of success, from this point what will a successful 2026 look like for the remaining champions over the course of the season’s second half? The team assess the merits of making the Grand Final or the ‘moral victory’ of topping the leaderboard.To conclude, Andy and Freddie then offer a round-up of the latest America’s Cup news, having also considered the blend between SailGP and Naples next year for both Emirates GBR and GB1, which both operate under the Athena Racing umbrella.For The Foil live podcast, sign up for your FREE tickets here: https://buytickets.at/thefoil/2299605For our round-up of the week in racing, go to: https://thefoil.com/news/the-week-in-racing-13-july-26/Subscribe to The Foil on YouTube for a new episode every week, and follow @wearethefoil across all platforms – Instagram, X, Threads, TikTok and YouTube.Listen to our podcast on Spotify and other platforms: https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/NSR2...Chapters0:00 Introduction1:44 Emirates GBR in 202610:09 Team management12:52 History of the franchise33:32 Heading into Portsmouth38:10 Evolution for 202740:50 What’s success in 2026?44:55 Emirates GBR and GB1 blend50:00 why Portsmouth is key52:40 America’s Cup latest Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices