Australia driver Tom Slingsby has unpacked the dramatic moment the Australian F50 sustained serious damage in Christchurch, revealing he had to choose between ‘keeping people safe’ and hitting a race mark.
Speaking after racing, an emotional Slingsby described the the moment as ‘a blur’, adding ‘I don’t think it’s sunk in’.
“All I knew is that we were going to hit Canada and our bow was headed straight for their strategist (Annie Haegar),” he said. “I had a choice to make and I just tried to keep people safe so I just turned the boat has hard as I could into the mark.”
He added that he ‘knew the mark was there – I’d seen it.’
The incident saw Australia handed a devastating 8 point deduction to its season score and 10 points docked from its event score. This means the Aussies have slipped into second place on the season leaderboard behind New Zealand. But Slingsby said he ‘didn’t care about results’, adding that he was ‘still in shock’.
“It’s been pretty emotional – it’s a scary moment when you feel like you’re about to kill someone essentially, so it’s been tough to process.”
Slingsby even cast doubt on Australia’s chances of racing at the next event in Bermuda, May 4-5, due to the ‘extensive’ damage sustained in the incident.
“The whole front beam has broken and they take a 3-4 months to build one of those and this one is a complete write off,” he said. “It will be a matter of whether there is a spare one in stock whether we’ll be racing in Bermuda.”
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