Double Olympic champion Martine Grael has been named driver of the Mubadala Brazil SailGP Team, which will enter the league next season.
Grael’s appointment, which was announced alongside the news that Rio will host Brazil’s first SailGP event, is a historic first for SailGP, with Grael marking the league’s first female driver.
Reacting to the news, SailGP CEO Russell Coutts said the Brazil team would be a ‘serious contender’ in the 2024/25 Season.
“We’re delighted to confirm Martine Grael as driver for the nation’s first SailGP team. Martine is an incredible talent and has shown she can win at the highest levels of elite sailing,” Coutts said.
A Rio national, Grael’s already illustrious career includes two Olympic golds won at the 2016 Rio and 2020 Tokyo Olympics, as well as offshore racing experience with Team AkzoNobel in the 2017-18 Volvo Ocean Race.
Grael added that she was ‘honored’ to lead the Brazilian team and described being the first woman to drive an F50 as a ‘new and challenging project’.
“We will start a new chapter in the competition that brings together the best in the world, at the same time that Rio de Janeiro launches its first stage. It could not be a better moment for our team.”
To date, 37 women have raced onboard F50s, with most SailGP teams having an active roster of three female athletes alongside their male counterparts. Grael and the Brazilian team will join a confirmed line-up of 11 national teams on the start line in November, battling it out in identical high-tech, high-speed 50-foot foiling catamarans.
Grael will get her first experience behind the wheel of an F50 this month at a training camp for select teams in Bermuda. The full Brazil team line-up will be unveiled soon.
Be the first to get the latest news, tickets alerts and up-to-date event information as soon as it’s available by signing up below.
