Two come-from-behind wins on day four of racing has put Team New Zealand in the box seat in the America's Cup match.
Photo: © Photosport Ltd
Despite twice being bettered off the start line by Luna Rossa on Monday, the Cup holders held their nerve on both occasions to eventually get past and cross the finish in front.
The dual victories gave Team New Zealand a 5-3 lead, putting them two more wins away from retaining the Auld Mug in the best of 13 series.
The Cup hosts made the first official pass of the match stick on leg three of the day's first race, pulling away from their to claim victory by 58 seconds.
The day's second race, however, was to prove much more dramatic.
Having again started from behind, Team New Zealand looked set to make another passing manoevre before a costly error brought them down off their foils during leg two.
The Italians sailed away and, with more than four minutes going past before the home boat was back up and foiling and also through gate two, a 4-4 scoreline to end the day looked well and truly on the cards.
But as the wind continued to drop on course, the room for mistakes also narrowed, Luna Rossa themselves dropping off their foils as they approached the third gate.
They got through but were effectively going nowhere, allowing Team New Zealand to charge through the gate four minutes and 27 seconds later and power past.
Photo: Photosport / Chris Cameron
From there the task was to stay up on the foils for the remaining two legs, the Kiwi crew keeping their composure to do that and complete the perfect day.
Team New Zealand flight controller Blair Tuke said the race two result was a satisfying one.
"Yeah, wow, what a race. Pretty unreal fightback from the guys there.
"Obviously we made a pretty costly error jibing right behind them on the first downwind and fell off the foils.
"But we got it back up reasonably quickly and sailed a great race from there and never looked back."
Luna Rossa co-helmsman Jimmy Spithill said they knew the second race was never "in the bag" and was staying positive as they looked ahead to day five of the regatta.
"Look, we did some things well [and] obviously there's a few things we have to go back and tidy up but we know we can win races.
"We've been in some tough situations before. The guys will keep their heads up, we'll go back, we'll try and grow stronger and we'll come out firing tomorrow."
Two more races are scheduled for Tuesday, with Luna Rossa needing to win at least one of those races to keep the series alive.
