HOME TOWN ADVANTAGE? ANALYSIS SHOWS TEAMS ARE LESS LIKELY TO PERFORM WELL AT HOME

Home town advantage has been put under the microscope, revealing that New Zealand’s debut home performance in Christchurch outstripped the average finish for a team racing at a home event.

Data provided from the nine-strong F50 fleet shows that the average event position for a home team in Season 3 is 4.8, slightly lower than the average position racing away from home - 4.6. Teams are therefore more likely to perform better racing away from home than in front of supporting crowds.

This was also true in Season 2, when the average finish for a team racing away from home was 4.2, higher than the average fifth place finish of racing at home.

While this suggests racing at home adds more pressure onto the host team, New Zealand’s second place finish in Christchurch last month shows this did not affect their performance. But home town performance data gathered from Season 3 shows that 71.4% of home teams racing on home waters performed better than the season average, with the United States’ eighth place finish in Chicago and Spain’s seventh place finish in Cadiz skewing the figures.

Indeed, New Zealand’s second place finish in Christchurch was higher still than the team’s 3.4 average finishing position throughout the season - showing that the average finish of a team racing at home or away is lower than the Kiwis’ average racing performance.

This is also true of Emirates Team GBR, France and Australia. Only the United States, which has an average finish of 4.9, Denmark, which has an average finish of fifth, and Spain, which has an average finish of 7.4, come in below the average home or away finishing positions.