Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport and INEOS, in collaboration with Team INEOS cycling and INEOS TEAM UK sailing have formed a new partnership to help drive up performance levels on the track, road and water.

Things have been mighty quiet with the America's Cup since Bermuda 2017. It's almost exactly the halfway point between the last Cup and the next edition in Auckland 2021, so where are things up to? With the teams staying mostly tight lipped about progress, Andy Rice turns to Jack Griffin, self-professed geek about all things related to the Cup. Who are the latest challengers to join the circus, and do they stand a a cat-in-hell's chance of taking on the big boys, what Jack refers to as the 'Super Teams'?

North Sails designers Burns Fallow and Michael Richelsen have been working closely with America’s Cup defender Emirates Team New Zealand and Challenger of Record Luna Rossa to develop the soft wing concept and AC75 Class Rule. “We started this project in September and we did not have a lot of time to figure out if this big idea was to be feasible or not, and there were some big questions to be answered..."

The new America's Cup rule is published. Time for the teams to start getting their heads around how to design, engineer and build one of these beasts. Time, as ever, will be the enemy. Money will be quite important too....

SoftBank Team Japan have bragging rights as the first team to pull off the foiling tack. As Dean Barker and Chris Draper point out, this really is a 'gamechanger' for the 2017 America's Cup, and opens up the tactical opportunities with the possibility of the foiling AC cats tacking on the windshifts...

One of the enduring themes of all our conversations with top sailors is their ‘Never Say Die’ (NSD) attitude. No matter how bad things get, you just do whatever it takes to get the job done. Because you never know how things might work out. The America’s Cup World Series racing in Bermuda saw Artemis Racing deliver a perfect example of NSD.