Australia are closing in on a spot in the SailGP grand final and the chance to race for $3 million after a mixed first day on windy San Francisco Bay in the season's last regatta.
Australia sat fifth on the event leaderboard after the first three fleet races on Saturday (Sunday AEST), tracking ahead of the seventh-placed finish that would guarantee their spot in Sunday's grand final (Monday AEST).
The Australian F50 catamaran could qualify placing lower than that, though it would be relying on other boats' results across the last two fleet races.
Once in the grand final, ladder-leading New Zealand and one other boat would stand between Tom Slingsby's Australian boat and a fourth consecutive SailGP title.
"We're pretty confident (about making the grand final)," grinder and flight controller Kinley Fowler told AAP.
"Our speed's there but we just need to refine some areas."
France are on track to leapfrog Spain and claim the third spot in the grand final after bouncing back from a crash during Friday's practice session and dominating the first day of the regatta.
Driver Quentin Delapierre nailed his start in all three races, France sitting up on the foils and setting the tone by winning the first race.
Great Britain finished the day in second place on the event leaderboard after twice coming in second but are out of contention for the grand final unless other teams receive penalty points.
Denmark won the third fleet race to round out the top three as they fought to keep their very slim grand final hopes alive.
Traditionally better suited to lighter conditions, Spain were haunted by slow starts.
They need to finish the fleet races fifth or higher to confirm a spot in the final without having to rely on other results, but are currently in seventh.
After placing fifth in the first fleet race, Australia won the second by some 40 seconds, beneficiaries of a blistering start and the changeable wind blowing across the bay.
They reached speeds above 80 km/h and at one stage opened up a gap of more than 400 metres as they headed for the final mark.
But Australia's third race was undone when they fell off the foils and slowed down below 30km/h attempting to tack around the third mark.
"We didn't see another boat (France) coming, thought they were going to be more of an issue than they probably were so we tacked into light air and just watched boats sail past us," Fowler said.
The error left Australia to finish the race in eighth, thwarting what was shaping as another respectable finish.
"I feel like when we're free, we're sailing the boat really fast," Fowler said.
"Then we just made some errors in the first and third race that we couldn't recover from."
