SailGP: Peter Burling cleared to race in Abu Dhabi
by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World NZ 29 Nov 2025 12:30 AEDT
Former footballer Luis Figo gestures to the camera alongside Peter Burling, Blair Tuke, Leo Takahashi Abu Dhabi, UAE, Friday 28 November © Ricardo Pinto/SailGP
The Black Foils team have advised that their skipper and helmsman, Peter Burling, who injured a finger on his right hand in test racing, has been cleared to race in the Grand Final this weekend in Abu Dhabi.
In a statement issued at 0730hrs UTC on Friday, the team announced: "Black Foils Driver Peter Burling has been cleared to return to sail with the team from today."
"Burling received a further medical assessment this morning in Abu Dhabi to the finger injury he sustained during Wednesday’s practice session."
"He will now take full part in today’s practice racing as normal."
Earlier Friday in a video released by the team, the back up driver, and regular strategist Liv Mackay said there were some positives that had come from the unexpected second training day.
"Yesterday was obviously a super challenging situation, but handled the best way possible. We're just all grateful that Pete's, obviously, okay. He was at the press conference this morning, and in really good spirits joining all the meetings and everything.
"But we felt like really took the most from today. It's always rare to get training day. So we really feel like we've actually got a lot of value from today.
"Personally, I'm really happy about getting some time behind the helm, but not in the best situation. But gain, taking the positives from it, I really feel like building out skills is really good for me to understand a lot more from Pete's role, as my primary role is to feed information to Pete."
"So it's been really helpful," she added.
Mackay, who was co-helm with Jo Aleh on Emirates Team NZ's Womens America's Cup team in Barcelona, said Burling injury tested the Black Foil's team dynamic.
"I think it's super fortunate that we feel like one big family," she explained. "In those situations, the team really comes around it, and we problem solve really quickly. Blair is obviously an equal leader in our team,. The transition is really quite an easy one in the sense that, Blair really steps up and takes on a lot on the boat.
"So he makes, my life, Leonard's [Takahashi] and everyone else's, a bit easier - so we can really concentrate on our roles."
"I think you learn a lot from these situations, and you grow stronger as a team."
Video below was issued by SailGP prior to the confirmation Peter Burling would sail on Friday: