Alinghi & BMW ORACLE prepare for battle

Alinghi & BMW ORACLE Racing Team prepare for battle

Team Alinghi and the BMW ORACLE Racing Team prepare for battle once again in the UBS Trophy

18th June, 2004 - Newport R.I. - After meeting in the Louis Vuitton Cup Final in February 2003, and then renewing hostilities in the Moët Cup this past September, Team Alinghi and the BMW ORACLE Racing Team will take to the water and battle once again on Saturday, this time for the UBS Trophy.

The eight-day event is the third contest in just over a year for these two elite sailing teams, and the score-line is tied. Ernesto Bertarelli's Alinghi had the better of the BMW ORACLE squad in Auckland to win the Louis Vuitton Cup, but Larry Ellison's BMW ORACLE team fought right back to claim the Moët Cup on its home waters off San Francisco.

The UBS Trophy is organised by Alinghi as the return match for BMW ORACLE who played host for the Moët Cup. Racing is scheduled to start at 13:30, on Saturday afternoon.

"BMW ORACLE put together an amazing event in San Francisco nine months ago, and we hope to do the same here in Newport," said Ernesto Bertarelli, the President of Team Alinghi. "We're looking forward to some great racing."

The UBS Trophy is two events in one, with a Pro-Driver Series and an Owner-Driver Series. The sailing teams have been in Newport training on the water for the past week, and for both, there a number of new additions to their crew list since the last America's Cup.

"We've enlarged our team with some new talent. We're looking forward to racing this week with an afterguard including John Kostecki, Gavin Brady, Larry Ellison, myself, and Steve Hayles navigating," said Chris Dickson, the CEO of BMW ORACLE Racing. "Bertrand Pacé is a new team member and he'll be joining us later this week. So we've got a number of excellent helmsmen and you can expect to see any of them at any given time."

"We want to give the chance during these races to some of our new people," explained Jochen Schuemann, the Sports Director of Alinghi. "Winning the America's Cup once is not enough. We have to do a lot more to keep it and defend it and so we have to make a lot of changes to be successful again, and that is what we are trying."

For Larry Ellison, the UBS Trophy is another opportunity to measure his squad against Alinghi, the Defender of the America's Cup.

"We have to sail exceptionally well to be competitive with Alinghi," Ellison said. "In San Francisco, we even had home court advantage, and in the end, it was decided by the last race. I think we were very competitive there, and I hope we'll sail well again here."

The spectator opportunities are immense in Newport, and the Governor of Rhode Island, Donald Carcieri, was on hand to welcome the teams to Newport.

"We're the ocean state, and we pride ourselves on being the historical home of America's Cup racing. There's a lot of history here. This state loves racing, loves sailing and it's important for us to see all of these people here," Mr. Carcieri said. "I'm looking forward to a fun week…it should be great."

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Quotes of the Day

Chris Dickson, BMW ORACLE Racing, on his team's preparation for the UBS Trophy: The team arrived in Newport three or four weeks ago, and we've been out on the water for the last week, practicing, and training and getting ready to take Alinghi on once again. We're one year into our four year America's Cup programme, we're building slowly and we're looking forward to racing Alinghi again this week.

Jochen Schuemann, Team Alinghi, on the new additions to Alinghi: We appreciate the chance to sail here with all the newly hired people, and there are quite a few. Some started their America's Cup careers here in Newport in 1983, when they were very, very young. Now they are much more experienced and have just joined our team. Hopefully we get a lot of new ideas and they contribute to our performance. We did suffer an accident yesterday when Brad Butterworth broke his ankle, so he will not be sailing unfortunately.

Ernesto Bertarelli (Team Alinghi) on how important winning the UBS Trophy is to his team: Being able to face another team is always a great opportunity to gauge our strengths and weaknesses. I like to quote Jochen who told me once about winning the Olympic medal in Kiel - he practiced with the best challenger in his class in the days before the event and he beat him every time so that by the time they got to the Olympics the guy was demoralised and destroyed, and Jochen had an easier time winning it, so we'll try and do that…as gentlemen of course…but we'll try and win.

Larry Ellison (BMW ORACLE Racing) on how motivated his team is to win the UBS Trophy: Just like Ernesto we want to win every single race. We're very upset when we lose, and we're very relieved when we win.

Donald Carcieri, the Governor of Rhode Island, on the 'buzz' the America's Cup brought to Newport during the 1980's: The crowds, the people from all over the world, everyone was scrambling to get out on a boat and watch the racing. This place was just booming with people. There's no question that we think of Newport as the home for America's Cup racing. I'm very excited on behalf of all of the citizens of our state.

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Schedule of Races for the UBS Trophy

June 19th, Saturday 1330 Two Pro-Driver races

June 20th, Sunday 1330 Two Pro-Driver races

June 21st, Monday 1330 Two Pro-Driver races

June 22nd, Tuesday 1330 Two Pro-Driver races

June 23rd, Wednesday NO RACING SCHEDULED

June 24th, Thursday 1330 One Pro-Driver race Two Owner-Driver races

June 25th, Friday 1330 One Pro-Driver race Two Owner-Driver races

June 26th, Saturday 1330 Two Pro-Driver races

The schedule of races is subject to change

UBS TROPHY PRESS OFFICE:

The UBS Trophy is a sailing regatta, to be held in Newport from June 19-26 2004, between Team Alinghi and the BMW ORACLE Racing Team. UBS is the main sponsor of the event. BMW is a co-sponsor whilst Nespresso, S.Pellegrino and Valencia 2007 are official suppliers.

Please refer to the official event website at www.ubstrophy.com, for more information.

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