Craig Wilson – team boss and throttleman of the reigning champion #99 Fountain Worldwide 1st4boats.com team – has said that he’s satisfied with the squad’s second-place finish in today’s Evolution class Sprint race, pointing out that the team is well on course to take its second consecutive crown if it can score another solid finish on Sunday.

The #99 Fountain Worldwide team hasn’t been able to match its dominant winning performance from the first two rounds of the season in recent races, but has continued accumulating enough points to put it comfortably clear of the #88 Kiton Outerlimits and #60 GFN Gibellato boats going into the final two rounds of 2008.

Another strong performance in Sunday’s Endurance race and bad luck for its title rivals could potentially put the #99 Fountain Worldwide team out of reach in the championship chase, with the double-header races that make up the Portuguese Grand Prix of the Sea in Portimao on September 26-28 still to go.

“We didn’t need to push for the race win,” said Wilson. “We knew we had the speed to do well, but we wanted to watch our main championship rivals. Once we knew that they were both struggling, we could just concentrate on a strong podium finish.

“Richard Carr and the #69 Honeyparty.com team don’t have the best finishing record this year, so there was always the prospect that we could gain from their bad luck. But they really deserved their victory and second place is perfect for us.”