DS Automobiles became title partner of the French SailGP team this season. After years in Formula E, the brand has switched elements and thrown its weight behind flying catamarans, in a championship widely billed as the “Formula 1 of the seas”.
SailGP was conceived in 2018 by Larry Ellison, the founder of Oracle, and Sir Russell Coutts, a five-time America’s Cup winner. The pair bought the catamarans used at the 2017 America’s Cup, made them strictly identical and launched a world circuit of six boats and six events in 2019. Seven seasons on, thirteen national teams contest thirteen Sail Grand Prix spread over eleven months, from Perth to Abu Dhabi by way of Geneva, for a prize pot of 12.8 million dollars. Two further franchises, one from the Middle East and one from South America, join next year, with a longer-term target of twenty teams and twenty-four events.
One-design as the rule of the game
Every crew sails the same boat, a 15-metre F50 weighing 2.4 tonnes and capable of exceeding 100 km/h on its foils. The championship record belongs to the French boat, clocked at 58.11 knots, or 107.63 km/h, on the Baltic off Sassnitz on 22 August. That run, made with the small 18-metre wing, erased the 103.93 km/h set by ROCKWOOL of Denmark at the same venue a year earlier. Nothing on board may be modified. Only the size of the rigid wing, between 18 and 27.5 metres, the size of the foils and the number of sailors vary, and the organisers impose that configuration the evening before according to the wind. Six crew members hold tightly defined roles, a helm, a wing trimmer, a flight controller who keeps the hull above the water, two grinders supplying hydraulic power and a strategist. Each boat carries around 125 sensors feeding a shore-based “coach booth”, where the coach and the data analyst talk to the crew in real time.
An American-style franchise
The business model breaks with traditional sailing. Each team belongs to an owner who has bought a licence, and only one licence exists per country. K-Challenge, a French sport-tech company founded in 2001, took over the French franchise alongside Kylian Mbappé, the Accor group and the Ares Management fund, and has run it independently since 1 January 2025. The annual budget is capped at 10 million euros, salaries included, and close to half of that goes back to the league for boat hire, logistics, maintenance and television production. Twenty-five people make up the team, no more than twenty-three may travel, and 120 containers move by cargo ship from one event to the next. DS Automobiles sits alongside ALL Accor, L’Oréal Groupe, Leyton and K-Way.
A season short of its ambitions
Quentin Delapierre’s French crew has been a top-five fixture for three seasons and wanted more this year. A podium in Australia opened the campaign before a crash in Auckland deprived the squad of two sailors for six months. At Geneva this weekend, the eleventh of thirteen events, the French believed a place in the final was within reach. Consistent on Saturday and second in race four, they paid for a poor start in the last qualifying race and missed the top two in their group by a single point. Sixth at the event, they hold the same position overall. Los Gallos of Spain took the win ahead of the BONDS Flying Roos of Australia and ROCKWOOL Racing of Denmark, with Sébastien Schneiter’s Swiss crew fourth in front of their home crowd. Dubai and Abu Dhabi follow at the end of November. Management is now betting on stability, since the most settled crews are also the quickest. The same line-up returns next year, and it will represent France at the 38th America’s Cup in Naples.
The thirteen teams on the grid
Australia, BONDS Flying Roos. Brazil, Mubadala Brazil. Canada, NorthStar. Denmark, ROCKWOOL Racing. Spain, Los Gallos. United States, United States SailGP Team. France, DS Automobiles SailGP Team France. Great Britain, Emirates Great Britain. Germany, Germany SailGP Team presented by Deutsche Bank. Italy, Red Bull Italy. New Zealand, Black Foils. Sweden, Artemis, new to the championship this season. Switzerland, Explora Journeys Swiss Team.
Three questions for Stéphan Kandler, co-CEO of K-Challenge
Stéphan Kandler
“The level is exactly the same, these are the best sailors in the world. The difference is that in SailGP all the boats are equal, so it really is the crew that makes the difference. In the America’s Cup, everyone designs and builds their own boat, it takes far more money and you work over three or four years. In football terms, I would say one is the Champions League and the other is the World Cup.”
Stéphan Kandler
“We cannot be satisfied, because our ambitions were high. We had built a new team and it started very well, with third place in Australia. The crash in Auckland changed everything, we lost two sailors for six months. Psychologically, it was hard on them too.”
Stéphan Kandler
“The team has to rebuild its coordination. We are keeping the same crew next year, because that is how you grow stronger and more consistent. We are convinced we have everything we need to succeed.”
